the Uttar Pradesh The ban on the illegal conversion of a religious ordinance, 2020, was approved by Governor Anandiben Patel on Saturday. Later that night, the FIR against Uwaish Ahmad reported to the Devarniyan Police Station in Bareilly. “This is the first case filed under the newly enacted law,” said DIG (Bareilly area) Rajesh Kumar Pandey.
The woman’s father, in his complaint, alleged that Ahmad had been “stalking and threatening” his daughter for the past three years. “We have registered it under Section 3/5 of the ordinance, along with sections 504 (breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the IPC,” additional SP (rural) Sansaar Singh told TOI.
Section 3 of the ordinance prohibits converting or “attempting to convert, directly or otherwise, any other person from a religion to another for the use or practice of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, seduction or by any fraudulent means or by marriage, ”Supreme Court attorney Shobha Gupta, who had fought on behalf of Bilkis Bano, told TOI. Section 5 establishes the punishment for his violation: from 1 to 10 years in prison and fines of up to 25,000 rupees. The burden of proof rests with the accused.
These charges, however, appear to have been added later. In the FIR, a copy of which is with TOI, the IPC sections were already printed. Below, handwritten in black ink, were the charges under the anti-conversion ordinance.
When asked why Ahmad would want to convert a married woman, Singh said that Ahmad wanted to marry her. In fact, Ahmad and the woman had tried to elope before. Their families are farmers and they knew each other from school. Singh said: “During the investigation, we learned that she had disappeared last year and then a complaint was filed against the young woman. But they found him in the village … the girl was later found in Bhopal. ”
She was married to another man in June. A relative of Ahmad said the two were involved by consensus. “Many in the locality knew … She wanted to marry Ahmad,” she said. The woman, her husband and her father did not respond to questions. His older brother repeated what his father had said in his complaint: “Ahmad used to stalk my sister since she was in school. Now he is forcing her to marry him and change her religion. ”
Their allegation is that when the woman came home to visit her family recently, Ahmad arrived there. “The defendant came to her home and threatened her and her father on Saturday,” said ASP Singh.
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