Girl's suicide raises eyebrows

By Our Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD, AUG. 10. Police are questioning the parents of a 19- year old girl, Bharti Barot, who committed suicide at the Hindu Mahasabha office here in order to thwart a move to separate her from her Muslim husband and reconvert her to Hinduism.

A resident of the Ranip locality in the city, Bharti had disappeared from her house on July 11. Her father, Mr. Kanubhai Barot, had filed a complaint with the Sabarmati police against one Mr. Salim Khan, alleging that Mr. Khan had kidnapped his daughter.

But on August 5, Bharti appeared before the police along with her advocate and told the police that she had married Mr. Salim Khan, 21, on her own accord at the Marriage Registrar's office. She produced the marriage certificate and expressed her willingness to stay with her husband. She told the police that she was in love with Mr. Salim for the last five years but got engaged only after they both attained marriageable age and rechristened herself as Firduas Banu after marriage.

The police, however, sent her to Nari Niketan Gruha instead of accepting her plea to be sent to her husband, because Mr. Salim Khan had not appeared before the police. Her mother claimed that Bharti had contacted her on Thursday and wanted to come home instead of staying at the Nari Niketan Gruha.

She was taken to the Hindu Mahasabha office in Khadia locality to persuade her to snap her ties with Mr. Salim and reconvert her into Hinduism. Her parents had also planned to marry her off to a Hindu boy after conversion. Bharti, under the pretext of taking a bath, locked herself in the bathroom, doused herself in kerosene and set herself afire. She succumbed to injuries at a hospital.

The incident has assumed communal overtones because the Hindu Mahasabha and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad frown upon Hindu girls marrying Muslim boys, while encouraging Muslim girls marrying Hindu boys.

The police action in sending her to the Nari Niketan Gruha instead of rejecting the complaint of her father against Mr. Salim could also be opened for close scrutiny as both were majors and she had repeatedly shown her preference for her husband instead of going back to her parents.

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