23-year-old Dushyant Chaudhary committed suicide by hanging himself from a ceiling fan at his house in the Meerut district of Uttar Pradesh. As per the family of the deceased, Dushyant was forced to take such an extreme step as he was being pressured by his wife and in-laws to convert to Islam. This incident happened in the Chitrakoot colony in Meerut’s Nauchandi locality.
As per Upendra Singh Yadav (SHO, Nauchandi), Dushyant went to his room to sleep on Saturday night. When he did not come out of his room till late on Sunday morning, his mother Shiksha Devi went to wake him up and found his body hanging from the ceiling fan. She immediately informed the police, which came and then sent the dead body for post-mortem and further examination.
As per Dushyant’s cousin, Farah lured him into a relationship and both married three years ago without the permission of their families. Since the marriage happened without the consent of Dushyant’s family members, the two were living separately. She and her family members kept insisting that he should embrace Islam.
“Farah and her family members – her father Hanif, mother, brothers Amjad and Ibrahim, sisters and 7-8 unknown accomplices – also took Dushyant to Deoband to make him convert to Islam. They were harassing him mentally and physically. On the morning of 29 Jan 2023, Dushyant spoke to Farah for half an hour from 4.30 – 5 AM. Tired of the constant harassment, he hung himself to death,” the FIR states.
Despite the family’s statement in FIR about forced conversion attempts by Farha’s family, Meerut Police have invoked only abetment to suicide charge against them, tweeted journalist Swati Goel Sharma.
Swati added that at one point Dushyant did give in to the pressure and converted to Islam. But he soon reverted to his Hindu ways, which was unacceptable to his wife’s family. They took away his wife and daughter with them, putting the condition that he must read Kalma again and serve Tablighi Jamaat for 40 days. But Dushyant did not give in to their pressure and returned to his parents house.
However, the toll of being separated from his family, especially his child, took a heavy toll and he finally ended his life, becoming another victim of the Abrahamic compulsion to spread their religion by any means necessary.