Kochi, Wednesday, 1 December 2009: In an affidavit moved before the Kerala High Court, the central home ministry has that, there is no movement called ‘Love Jihad’ prevailing any where in the country or organized religious conversion taking place.

The affidavit was moved by Home secretary GK Pillai.

Earlier, the state High Court had directed the Kerala Police and Union Home Ministry to probe the alleged movement, under which young Muslim boys reportedly target college girls for conversion by feigning love. The court had also asked the state and Centre to look into the sources that “fund” the love jihad, the number of girls who have got “trapped in the racket” in the past three years and its extremist links, if any.

A similar report was filed in the Court by , Director General of Police Jacob Punnose earlier, in which it was stated that, there were reasons to suspect ‘concentrated attempts’ to persuade non-Muslim girls to convert to Islam after they fall in love with Muslim boys, but no organisation called ‘Love Jihad’ had been identified so far in the state. The dGP however, says that the police had received some information from some units based on “source inputs” which suggested ‘clandestine design’ of certain groups aimed at religious conversion through “deceitful means”, but the contents of three reports lacked supportive evidence and were often based on hearsay. No cogent material was available in the three reports to make an unambigious statement on the truth of allegations of forced conversions.