Two youths, including minor, booked under Uttar Pradesh anti-conversion law

By PTI
BAREILLY: Two youths, including a minor, were booked in separate cases under provisions of the Uttar Pradesh anti-conversion law apart from charges of rape on Wednesday in Nawabganj area here, police said.

The FIRs were registered against the accused under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance.

In the first case, the accused minor, who is a Class 12 student, has been admitted to a hospital in Bareilly and will be sent to a juvenile home after being discharged, SP (Dehat) Raj Kumar said.

He said the minor youth had taken away a 15-year-old girl from the same village to Jaipur and promised to marry her.

The girl, who studies in Class 9 and belongs to another community, was fooled as the boy had given her another name once she reached Rajasthan’s capital, he said quoting the complaint given by the victim’s father.

When the girl objected to the ‘nikaah’ ceremony, she was held hostage, raped and later left outside her village by the youth who escaped from the place, the police officer said.

When the FIR was lodged and the police started searching for him, the youth reached a private hospital and got himself admitted there, the SP further said.

After reuniting with her family in Bareilly, the girl was sent for a medical examination that confirmed she was raped, he said.

In another similar case, Bareilly SSP Rohit Singh Sajwan said a youth from the same Nawabganj police station area had eloped with a Class 10 student to Bhilwara in Rajasthan on February 2.

The youth asked her to convert before marriage and was raped upon refusal, according to the complaint by the girl’s father.

The Bhilwara police in Rajasthan arrested the youth on suspicion of possessing a country-made weapon when he was caught.

After he was interrogated, it came to light that he had eloped with the girl and Bareilly police was informed.

He is currently lodged in Bhilwara jail and the Bareilly has booked him under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance in UP aside from rape charges based on the complaint by the girl’s father.