THE JS DESK
Ranchi, Sept 30: The court of Special CBI Judge PK Sharma today convicted the three accused, Ranjit Kohli alias Raqibul Hasan, dismissed former High Court Registrar (Vigilance) Mushtaq Ahmed and Kohli’s mother Kaushal Rani in a ‘love jihad case filed some nine years ago.
After hearing all the parties, the court had reserved its decision on September 23.
A total of 26 witnesses were presented by the CBI to prove the case. On the basis of those witnesses and the evidence presented by the CBI, the court convicted Raqibul Hasan alias Ranjit Kohli, Mushtaq Ahmed, and Kaushal Rani. The four witnesses presented by the defense could not prove the innocence of the three in the court.
Ranjit Kohli alias Raqibul Hasan, Mushtaq Ahmed, and Kaushal Rani were accused of assaulting Tara Shahdeo, torturing her for religious conversion, and molesting her as part of a well-planned conspiracy, which has now been proved after the court’s decision.
The Case
Tara married a shooting professional named Ranjeet Kumar Kohli on July 7 2014 in Ranchi. Ranjeet was well-connected with high-profile people. Tara had met Ranjeet the same year earlier during shooting practice. He started courting her and later proposed to her, to which she agreed and married Ranjeet in June 2014, at a high-end hotel in the capital.
However, subsequently, she walked out alleging that Ranjeet was actually one Raqibul, leading to uproar and registration of FIR against him.
Due to this reason, this incident was reported as a possible case of ‘Love Jihad’ back in 2014.
Apart from Raqibul alias Kohli, there were two other accused in the case – Mushtaq Ahmed, an officer in the Jharkhand High Court, and Kohli’s mother, Kaushal Rani. Ahmed was accused of helping Raqibul change his identity to Kohli.
Reportedly, both Raqibul and his mother used to mentally and physically torture Tara, asking her to accept Islam if she wanted her married life to be normal. She was strictly warned not to apply ‘sindoor’, failing which her hands would be broken. There were dowry demands too from the in-laws, Tara had alleged.
A group of Maulvis were also called a couple of days after their wedding where Tara was asked to convert. Tara had alleged that she was brutally beaten up after she had refused to convert. She was allegedly further threatened that not only her, her family members would be killed if she opened her mouth.
Tara decided to break free when she used a mobile phone of domestic help to call her brother and asked him to come to her in-laws’ house along with the police. The incident came to public knowledge thereafter.
Later, Raqibul Hasan accepted that he had physically assaulted Tara but denied putting pressure on religious conversion.
Initially, the state police had registered FIRs under sections pertaining to inflicting cruelty for dowry.
However, a PIL was filed by Akhand Bharat before the Jharkhand High Court. On May 22, 2015, the Jharkhand High Court directed CBI to take over the investigations. Subsequently, it registered two FIRs, under various sections of the Indian Penal Code, including rape, outraging the modesty of women and hurting religious sentiments.
CBI charge sheet against Raqibul
In 2017, the CBI had filed a chargesheet against Ranjeet alias Raqibul, his mother Kaushal Rani, and Mushtaq Ahmed, the then Registrar (vigilance) of the Jharkhand High Court.
On June 27, 2018, a Ranchi court granted Tara Shahdeo divorce from her husband on the grounds of false information and the subsequent domestic and physical violence.
