By Huneza Khan
Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh: On Raksha Bandhan this year, Rahela (40) stood outside Bhopal jail from 8 am to 10 pm, waiting to see her husband. The meeting lasted 15 minutes. When her turn finally came, the guard did not call her by name, but instead shouted, “HuT wale aa jaayein [HuT families, come forward]”. Once a lecturer, her husband, Mohammed Saleem (42), was now reduced to a label.
“He tells me that they only give him food that is enough just to survive. He used to weigh 100 kilograms, and now he is only 70 kilograms. Anything untoward happens outside, they punish him inside. I die every day thinking about his experiences in jail,” Rahela told 101Reporters.
Rahela is struggling with the situation largely on her own, having lost the support of most of her family after she converted to Islam in 2012, three years after her husband. “As converts, we lost our families and became families with other converts. And when Saleem and others were arrested, these gatherings were called ‘group meetings’ held as part of a conspiracy,” she said.
The trauma extends to her children. “I have to answer their questions every day. I have to brainmap them. They ask, ‘What has our father done to be called a terrorist? In movies, terrorists have guns, but we never saw him with one.’ Once, a boy asked my son, ‘Did you cause the Ahmedabad plane crash?’ He came home in tears, asking, ‘How could my friend say to me?’”
Her family’s ordeal is part of a larger pattern. Saleem is among thousands of people held under the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA), one of India’s toughest laws. The Act allows prolonged detention without trial, makes bail difficult, and broadens the scope of admissible evidence. Courts can deny bail if accusations appear “prima facie true.” As a result, accused individuals often spend years in jail while trials crawl forward and their families begin serving a sentence long before any verdict is delivered.
The Ministry of Home Affairs told Parliament that 8,719 UAPA cases were registered between 2014 and 2022. Only 222, or about 2.5% ended in conviction.
In May 2023, the Madhya Pradesh Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), working with the Intelligence Bureau and Telangana Police, detained 16 men: ten in Bhopal, one in Chhindwara, and five in Hyderabad. The first information report named 17 people, charging them under IPC sections, including 121-A (conspiracy to wage war) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy), and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act sections on terror funding and unlawful activities.
Saleem was among those arrested in Hyderabad. According to Rahela, men in plain clothes stopped him on the way home, saying they wanted to discuss “a small matter about children”.
At the house, they asked for the couple’s ID documents, records, books and publications. After the conversion, the couple had already updated them with their new identities. “We were still new to Islam. It takes time to truly embrace and understand a new faith. We found ourselves still learning despite years of practice. Some books were gifts in Urdu, which we couldn’t even read. They even took my children’s toy air gun and kanche (marbles),” she told 101Reporters.
The next day, her son saw his father’s face on television, labelled ugrawadi (extremist). Rahela said the couple was never provided any clarity on the exact charges against Saleem.
She also claims that before the chargesheet was filed, her husband was told to abandon his faith if he wanted to avoid prosecution.
The FIR registered in May stated: “Certain members of Hizb-Ut-Tahrir (HuT) are clandestinely attempting to build cadres in Madhya Pradesh by indoctrinating and recruiting Muslim youth for ‘jihad’ to overthrow the constitutionally established Government of India and establish a state governed by Sharia law. The said youth are allegedly collecting a cache of arms, ammunition, and explosives to destabilise the country and carry out terror attacks.”
Saleem’s lawyer, Advocate Parvez Alam, told 101Reporters that more than two years later, the case has not progressed beyond evidence hearings. “Framing charges is easier than proving them. There was no ban on HuT when these arrests happened.”
In October 2024, the government formally banned Hizb-ut-Tahrir, calling it an organisation seeking to establish a global caliphate by overthrowing elected governments through jihad.
“It was functioning openly with the government’s knowledge. They could not have been arrested for being associated with a legal group then,” Alam added.
The family is still not sure what Saleem’s crime was. After the initial arrests, media reports highlighted that at least five of the accused had married Hindu women, two of whom had converted to Islam only a few years ago. The case quickly drew attention and was linked to the “love jihad” conspiracy theory.
"Love jihad" is a conspiracy theory promoted by Hindu nationalist groups in India, claiming that Muslim men trick Hindu women into romance and marriage to forcibly convert them to Islam and increase the Muslim population. There is no legal provision defining such a term.
However, the FIRs reviewed by this reporter contain no charges related to ‘love jihad’.
Hailing from the Agrawal and Jain families, Rahela and Saleem (formerly Mansi Agrawal and Saurav Rajevaid) had a Hindu custom marriage. Saleem accepted Islam in 2009 and lost his job as a private lecturer soon after. “Though he never pressured me to convert, the moral changes in him attracted me, and I accepted Islam in 2012,” Rahela recalled.
“My in-laws threw us out of the house after discovering that we had accepted Islam. At that moment, we had nothing with us except my younger son’s milk bottle. We came under pressure from different organisations for Ghar Wapsi (reverse conversion) and received repeated threat calls targeting our children. The city that once felt like home suddenly turned harsh and unwelcoming. We moved to Hyderabad (around 2019-2020) in search of safety, where the environment was more accepting, and we finally managed to settle.
This term indicates the belief held by the organisations facilitating such programmes that most of the Muslims and Christians in India have descended from Hindus, and hence are returning to their "home" through reconversion.
To support the family during those years, she took up teaching in a school before they moved to Hyderabad, where, she said, “life became easy and beautiful.”
That life ended with Saleem’s arrest in 2023.
With UAPA charges hanging over her husband, Rahela’s battles multiplied. Few lawyers in Bhopal were willing to touch UAPA or NIA cases. She knocked on many doors before finding Advocate Alam. The gap was so stark that she even enrolled in a law degree herself.
“As a mother, I couldn’t travel constantly between Hyderabad and Bhopal for hearings. I shifted back to Bhopal after my children’s exams, but finding a house was another struggle. Nobody wanted to rent to me with a label of terrorism. Doors closed even in Muslim localities. We finally got a place at a high rent. Every knock at the door fills me with fear now—of agencies and raids. Is it difficult for them to frame me too, just for supporting my husband?”
The strain has pushed her into roles she never wanted. “I never wanted to be the man of my family, but happily lived as a homemaker. Now I am forced to handle everything alone. Who will give me a regular job if I ask for weekly leave to visit my husband in jail and four days every month for hearings? I manage with online tuitions,” she said.
The case against Saleem remains stuck at the evidence stage. His counsel argued that no offence of joining a banned group can apply, since HuT had not been proscribed when he was picked up.
Rahela also found herself increasingly isolated. “The Muslim community accepted us when our own communities abandoned us. I understand their silence now. Even a small show of support could get them framed tomorrow,” she said.
Advocate Deepak Bundele, counsel for another accused in the same case, said the law punishes families as much as individuals. “Even an accused cannot be called a criminal until proven guilty, but the media skips this, branding them terrorists. Treating wives and children like criminals is a disgrace for any civilised society. Women like Rahela suffer doubly, first as women and then as Muslims,” he said. “When the media acts as a parallel court, as it did during the ‘Corona Jihad’ propaganda later struck down by the Delhi High Court, it fuels hatred against an entire community.”
For Rahela, the labels are lived every day. Her husband remains in jail, the trial unresolved. She carries on alone, balancing children, illness, and courtrooms. “Life changed after his arrest, and my children have learned to adjust. I have taught them to live with less. But the fear has taken over my life,” she said.
This story was produced for and originally published as part of the Crime and Punishment project in collaboration with Vidhi Centre for Legal Policy.
This article was originally published in 101 Reporters under Creative Common license. Read the original article.
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