‘Love Jihad’ cases among 636 complaints of women harassment filed with Women’s Commission in past 1 year

Bhopal (Madhya Pradesh): Love Jihad cases are among 636 complaints of women harassment pending with Madhya Pradesh State Women’s Commission for past one year (April 2024-March 2025).

The members of National Commission for Women (NCW) are in the city in the wake of rape-and-blackmailing racket by hiding religious identity, which has shocked Bhopal.

They included 2 cases of hiding religious identity, 85 cases of sexual exploitation and 41 cases of cyber crime where sexually explicit videos of women were shot secretly and they were threatened that the videos would be made viral to make them comply with the demands of their tormentors.

Complaints are accepted by Women Commission under 12 heads including murder, dowry death, suicide, harassment at workplace, domestic violence, mental harassment etc. There is no category called Love Jihad and the commission has no record of such cases, an official said, adding that such cases are categorised as women harassment.

The Commission has been non-functional since January 2019 when Lata Wankhede’s tenure as the chairperson of Commission expired. During Wankhede’s tenure, 14,000 cases were disposed of.

When she left, around 7,000 cases were pending. Now, 27,645 cases are pending with the commission. “We can accept complaints but cannot take any action,” the official added.