In Little Angel Toys Shop in Paltan Bazar, Vikas Verma is trying to sell a pink unicorn to a customer. Some bargaining ensues for a few minutes in what is the busiest market in Dehradun, but Verma, who is the owner, refuses to relent. Then his phone beeps, and he looks at a WhatsApp message. Distracted, he agrees to the customer’s price, calling to his staff to take care of the shop. Moving to a corner, Verma fervently types a message to accompany a photograph of a notice pasted on the board of the Sub-Divisional Magistrate’s office.
“We have to find this girl,” says Verma, 44, who is the Bajrang Dal chief in Dehradun. In the notice are pictures of the couple — a Hindu woman and a Muslim man — who had applied to legalise their union under the Special Marriage Act, 1954. The recipients, all volunteers of the Bajrang Dal, are asked to relay the message to as many people as they can. The couple and their families must be identified, Verma urges, and the woman, who has “fallen into the trap of ‘love jihad’, must be ‘counselled’.”
