Merinews first reported the story of Umer and Priyanka from Bhopal.
This is the second part of story from UK of an inter religion marriage
between a Sikh girl and a Muslim boy. The predicament of the lovebirds
was the same.
THE STORY CONTINUES:
The community in UK continued the religious persecution of wife and
husband. They decided to go through a Sikh religious ceremony. There
was a lot of opposition to this and no one was willing to conduct such
a ceremony. A stumbling block was the Muslim name of the boy
(Mohammed). He agreed to take the oath that he believed in Sikh Gurus,
by circling around the holy place. He bowed in front of the Holy Book
(Guru Granth) of Sikhs. But Sikhs refused to accept this as legitimate
wedding. In UK, the couple suffered abuse, harassment and intimidation
at the hands of the Pakistani gangs, who accused them of converting
from Islam.
The names of
Mohammed and M Kaur were circulated by email throughout UK by mosques
and Hizb ul Tahrir, a Muslim youth group linked to fundamentalists. The
story was reported by www.newkerala.com. Birmingham Post reported on 27
June 2007 that gangs of Sikhs and Muslims youth clashed in Birmingham
over a similar marriage taking place in a gurudwara. A Muslim guy
married Sikh girl. The cars of Sikh priests were set on fire. Police
remained a mock spectator, making matters worse for the couple. Sikh
committees threatened to expel all members who took part in their
wedding.
Muslim
friends of wife attended the temple wedding. Rumours started in
Bradford and Leeds. Extended families are very influential people in
Pakistani community. They have links in virtually every town with
sizeable Pakistani population in UK. The couples’ predicament spread
like wild fire all over UK. Not only this, barely one week after the
weeding, windows were smashed; cars were vandalised and abandoned at
the roadside to be recovered by police next morning. They received phone calls threatening their lives.
House
was broken into but attackers ran away when the alarm went off. Police
came, recorded the crime but as usual, there was no action. It was
really a frustrating state of affairs. Their normal life was not
possible in UK.
Due to fear, harassment, intimidation and assault on husband by gangs of Muslim youth, they decided to move from that area.
The
terror continued in the new house, windows were smashed and my car was
vandalised. The police recovered the car abandoned on the roadside,
next day. They received a phone call informing me that what has
happened to my car is an example of what can happen to me next if I
continue staying with my husband and the caller spoke Punjabi and was a
lady. Fearing for his life, my husband left.”