On Thursday, a case was registered against fourteen people under a recently introduced Uttar Pradesh law to punish forced religious conversions of women after interfaith marriage, the Police said.
Superintendent of Police Sushil Ghule said the case was registered on the basis of a complaint under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance-2020 at Chiraiyakot Police Station in Mau district.
The complainant alleged that his 30-year-old daughter was kidnapped by a person he identified as Shabab Khan aka Rahul for religious conversion, said Police.
He filed the complaint against Shabab Khan & 13 of his acquaintances, saying that the wedding of his daughter had been scheduled for Nov 30 but on the eve of the marriage Khan kidnapped her with the intent of converting her religion.
Ghule, the Superintendent of Police of Mau, said that “Three teams have been deployed to arrest all the accused & recover the woman. We will soon get a breakthrough as we have some important clues".
Uttar Pradesh governor Anandiben Patel approved the ordinance promulgated by the state against forced & dishonest religious conversions on Nov 28. The first case under the new law was registered within hours against a Muslim man d in Bareilly the same night. He was arrested later. The ordinance has provisions to check religious conversions carried out by “allurement, coercion, force, fraud, or marriage.”
The state cabinet cleared the law earlier in Nov, targeting what many right-wing outfits term “love jihad”, which involves Muslim men marrying Hindu women with the aim of changing the latter’s religion after marriage. According to the ordinance, marriages with the intention of changing the woman’s religion will be declared null & void.
Under the provisions of the new law, the violation has been made a cognizable & non-bailable offence.
The new law provides for a jail term of up to ten years in some cases for violators & treats forced conversions as a non-bailable offence.
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