Karnataka: Congress councillor blames daughter's murder on 'love jihad'
A day after a 21-year-old woman was stabbed to death by her former classmate on a college campus in Karnataka’s Hubballi district, her father, who is a Congress councillor, on Friday alleged that the murder may have been a case of “love jihad”, The Indian Express reported.
“Love jihad” is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslim men lure Hindu women into romantic relationships in order to convert them to Islam.
On Thursday, Neha Hiremath, a first-year Master of Computer Applications student and daughter of Hubballi Dharwad Municipal Corporation Councillor Niranjan Hiremath, was killed at the KLE Technological University by her former classmate Fayaz, a resident of Savadatti in Belagavi district.
The incident was captured on CCTV camera. The footage shows Fayaz stabbing Neha Hiremath several times before fleeing, the police said, according to The Indian Express
On Friday, Niranjan Hiremath told reporters that his family was aware that Fayaz was harassing his daughter. “When my daughter was pursuing BCA [Bachelor of Computer Applications], he also enrolled in the same college but failed,” Niranjan Hiremath said. “He was pestering my daughter for a love relationship, but she refused.”
Fayaz, who was also injured in the attack, was taken to a hospital with his victim and subsequently arrested. The police on Friday produced him before a magistrate...
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