Community leaders' advice to Muslim youths

Against the backdrop of the controversial marriage between a Sindhi girl and a Muslim boy, a minority body on Monday urged its community members to refrain from 'inter-religious marriages that causes embarrassment' and counselled the youth to 'become a true Hindu.'

Majlis-e-Shura of Masjid committee has appealed to Muslim youths to marry within the community and keep away from inter-religious marriages that cause embarrassment, committee secretary Syed Wasimuddin told PTI.

Since the Muslim youth Mohammed Umer, who eloped and married the Sindhi girl Priyanka Wadhwani, had adopted Hinduism, the Shura has also asked him to 'become a true Hindu and stick firmly to Hindu beliefs,' he said, adding the couple has been asked to return home.

"We have tried to avoid religious conversion in last three years," Wasimuddin claimed, adding that the couple was turned away by the committee when it approached for conversion.

Elopement of Sindhi girls with Muslim youths had sparked protests in Bhopal with saffron groups staging demonstrations and girls and their mothers taking to the streets against it.

As protests continued, three women's organisations, including All India Democratic Women's Association's state wing, expressed solidarity with the inter-religious couple and demanded that fundamentalist forces threatening the couple should be prosecuted for contempt of court.

"We want to let the Madhya Pradesh government know that rule of the law prevails here and not that of some fundamentalist forces trying to chain women," state AIDWA leader Sandhay Shaili told media persons in Bhopal.