The wedding reception of a Muslim man and a Hindu woman in
the Ghaziabad city of India's Uttar Pradesh on Friday was briefly
disrupted as a mob of religious extremists tried to gatecrash the
ceremony but were stopped by local police, IANS reported.
Upon
learning of the interfaith marriage, members of the ruling Bharatiya
Janata Party (BJP) had teamed up with fellow zealots from Hindutva
ideologues Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and Jai Shiv Sena to stage a protest
outside the home of the bride's parents, claiming that the matrimony was
a case of 'love jihad'.
Ignored was the fact that not
only the now-married couple, but also their families were completely
fine with the marriage, and the reception was actually thrown by the
bride's father, Pushpendra Kumar.
"They have decided to
live together, so they have registered their marriage under the Special
Marriage Act in Ghaziabad," Kumar said. "We had arranged a reception
party. I don't see any love jihad in their marriage."
Regarding
the threats, he added: "I had been receiving phone calls for the last
two days to stop this marriage. But both are major and mature enough to
know what's wrong and what's right."
But come reception
day, the two families were astonished to find that an assortment of
protesters had gathered outside their residence to stop the event.
Fortunately
for them, the police saw the protest as an attempt to interfere with
the private life of an individual and used force to disperse the
protesters.
