A screenshot of a newspaper clipping is being shared on social media claiming that Muslims have started openly advertising the rewards for converting non-Muslim girls to Islam in the newspapers. A Hindi text heading above one of the price cards reads, “Ladki Bhagao-Muslim Banao..Aur Inaam Pao” (When translated to English: “Runaway with the girl-make her a Muslim…and get rewarded”). This news clipping has also shared another similar rate card with love and an arrow logo on the top. Let’s verify the claim made in the post.
Claim: Screenshot of a newspaper advertisement clipping mentioning the rewards for converting non-Muslim girls to Islam.
Fact: The news clipping shared in the post was published by the Sanjha Lokswami newspaper on 02 November 2017. Sanjha Lokswami published these rate cards as part of a news report it published about Love Jihad and exposing an alleged love jihad procedure using fake notaries. These are not advertisements issued by Muslims. Hence, the claim made in the post is MISLEADING.
On observing the news clipping screenshot carefully, one could see the Hindi text ‘Sanjha Lokswami’ on top of the rate card. Sanjha Lokswami is a Madhya Pradesh-based Hindi daily newspaper. When we searched for this news clipping using relevant keywords on the internet, we found the same news clipping photo in a Facebook post published by Sanjha Lokswami journalist Nilesh Nagar on 02 November 2017. Nilesh Nagar published this newspaper clipping mentioning it to be a news story exposing the conspiracy of Islamic conversions in the name of love and using fake notaries.
While reporting an alleged master plan of love jihad using fake notaries, Sanjha Lokswami published a couple of price cards mentioning it as the price rewards by Muslim organisations for converting Hindu, Jain and Sikh girls to Islam. Sanjha Lokswami reported a few other news stories about Love Jihad in November 2022. They can be seen here and here. These price cards published in the Sanjha Lokswami newspaper are not advertisements issued by Muslims, but part of a story published by the newspaper.
On the other rate card published in the news clipping, one could see the Hezbollah flag logo on the love and arrow symbol published on the rate card. Hezbollah is a Lebanon-based Shia Islamist militant group and political organisation. This rate card first appeared in a story published by the ‘Sikhs and Islam’ blog page on 05 February 2010. A few news websites published articles in 2014 reporting these Islamic conversion rate cards as fake. They can be seen here and here. Though we could not ascertain the exact source of these rate cards, from the above pieces of evidence, it can be concluded that the rate card in the news clipping shared in the post is not an advertisement by Muslims.
To sum it up, these alleged Islamic conversion rate cards published in the Sanjha Lokswami newspaper are not part of an advertisement issued by Muslims.
