Meerut: Members of Vishwa Hindu Parishad on Sunday allegedly harassed and assaulted an interfaith couple who are nursing students at a Meerut government college. After spotting the couple, both in their early twenties, in Jagriti Vihar area, the right-wing activists literally dragged the duo to Medical police station.Soon after arriving at the station, VHP members created a ruckus and raised slogans against cops for “ignoring cases of love jihad”. By now, a group of journalists had reached the station. Asked why they were harassing two consenting adults, VHP’s Meerut region chief Manish Kumar said, “What freedom are you talking about? We won’t let such things happen in the name of freedom.”The protesters also asked photographers present there to click pictures of the couple and “expose” the duo. Surprisingly, while no charges were pressed against the right-wing men, the couple was detained and their parents were called to the police station. “We took the couple in detention and called the girl’s parents. We felt that there could be a possibility that the girl was acting under pressure and we wanted to rule that out by speaking to her parents,” Meerut SP (city) Ranvijay Singh said.This is not the first time when right-wing activists have taken the law into their own hands on the pretext of waging a war against ‘love jihad’. In July last year, a minor boy was roughed up by members of Bajrang Dal after he was found talking to a girl from a different community. Police didn’t file an FIR claiming that the victim didn’t press any charges against his attackers.

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