The ordinance approved on Saturday provides up to 10 years in prison for “love jihad.”
Lucknow:
Uttar Pradesh police have filed their first case under the new state anti-conversion law, accusing a Muslim of pressuring a woman to change her religion.
The case was reported Saturday at the Deorania Police Station in Bareilly District under the Uttar Pradesh Illegal Conversion of Religion Prohibition Ordinance, 2020, passed Saturday by Governor Anandiben Patel.
The father of the Hindu woman has alleged that the defendant was trying to force her to convert to Islam. It has also reported that the accused, when confronted by his family, threatened to kill them.
“The boy had abducted the girl. So another case has already been filed against him. He was pressuring the girl to convert. Now a case has been filed under Sections 3 and 5 of the new ordinance. This is also from the IPC sections, “Sansar Singh, Bareilly rural police superintendent, told the media.
“The boy is on the run, we are looking to arrest him,” Singh said.
The cabinet of Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath approved the ordinance on Tuesday, proposing a maximum punishment of 10 years for crimes related to “love jihad.”
The new law calls for a prison sentence of one to five years for the defendant, with a fine of 15,000 rupees, if convicted of carrying out forced conversions for marriage.
Under the new law, a marriage will be declared “null and void” if a woman’s conversion is solely for that purpose, and those who wish to change their religion after marriage must file an application with the district judge.
In recent weeks, BJP-run states such as Uttar Pradesh, Haryana, and Madhya Pradesh have revealed plans to enact laws to counter alleged attempts to convert Hindu women to Islam under the guise of marriage.
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