News Analysis India

Tag: Love Jihad

  • Police give clean chit to two brothers charged under UP’s anti-conversion law

    By PTI
    MUZAFFARNAGAR: The police here have given a clean chit to two men charged under Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion law for allegedly trying to change the religion of a woman, an official said.

    An FIR was earlier registered against brothers Nadeem and Salman for allegedly trying to unlawfully convert a woman to another religion but no evidence has been found against them, said Dharmendra Pal, SHO of Mansurpur police station where the case was filed.

    The duo was charged under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, and Indian Penal Code sections 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 (criminal intimidation), he said.

    The Allahabad high court, which is hearing an appeal in connection with the case, has been informed that there is no evidence that the two men tried to change the woman’s religion.

  • Allahabad High Court to hear PIL challenging ‘Love Jihad’ ordinance in Uttar Pradesh on January 15

    By PTI
    PRAYAGRAJ: The Allahabad High Court on Wednesday fixed January 15 for hearing a PIL challenging the constitutional validity of Uttar Pradesh’s new ordinance against forced and dishonest religious conversions.

    A bench comprising Chief Justice Govind Mathur and Justice S S Shamshery was nearing the plea contending that the ordinance — Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 — was morally and constitutionally invalid.

    The PIL alleged that the ordinance, which the state government said was enacted to check ‘love jihad’ (forced conversion for inter-faith marriages involving a Muslim man) impinges upon the fundamental right to choice and the right to change of faith.

    The petition filed by advocate Saurabh Kumar and others have asked the court to declare the ordinance as ultra vires of the Constitution.

    Besides, they have also sought direction for authorities not to take any action under the ordinance during pendency of the petition.

    The court tagged the petition along with other petitions filed earlier in which the state government has already filed an affidavit stating that the Ordinance is aimed at preventing any form of unlawful conversion actuated by elements of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement, etc and the Constitution abhors any form of forceful conversion particularly in matters of religion.

  • Now, 224 ex-babus back law on love-jihad

    By Express News Service
    LUCKNOW: In a strong rebuff to 104 former civil servants who had written a letter to UP CM Yogi Adityanath urging him to withdraw the state’s new ordinance against religious conversions, 224 retired civil servants, including IAS, IPS, IFS officers, retired judges of various High Courts and retired defence personnel, have written a letter in support of anti-conversion ordinance and released it to the media here on Monday. 

    Last week, over 100 ex-bureaucrats had written an open letter to UP CM saying that new anti-conversion law of Uttar Pradesh had turned the state into “the epicentre of politics of hate, division and bigotry”. Having written the letter as members of ‘Forum of Concerned Citizens’, the signatories reiterated their belief in Indian democracy while dubbing the 104 ex-bureaucrats as “visibly biased with an anti-establishment attitude despite overtly posing as non-political.”“This group seems to have usurped the Constitutional power of Judicial Review to put every law of the land to the test of their own whims,” says the letter.