The Uttar Pradesh police have registered the first case under the newly-passed ‘Love-Jihad’ law at Deorania Police station in the district.
Owais Ahmed, the first man to be booked under the new law in the state is absconding.
‘The accused has been booked under 504, 506 IPC and section 3/5 of the new anti-conversion law for trying to forcibly convert a girl to Islam,’ SP (Rural) Bareilly Sansar Singh.
The girl’s father has alleged that Owais had built pressure on his daughter to convert to Islam against the family’s wishes. ‘Owais was giving threats to the family because of their opposition to conversion,’ the father said.
Additional Chief Secretary (Home) Awanish Awasthi said that a case was registered by Tikaram, a resident of Sharif Nagar village, who accused Owais of trying to convert his daughter through ‘allurement’.
Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s Cabinet on November 24 cleared the Ordinance, proposing a maximum punishment of 10 years for ‘love jihad’ related offences. Under the law, a marriage will be declared ‘null and void’ if the conversion of a woman is solely for that purpose, and those willing to change their religion post marriage need to apply to the district magistrate.
‘There were more than 100 incidents reported in which forceful religious conversion was being done. Also, it was reported religious conversions were going on in the state using deceitful means. So to make a law on this becomes an important matter of policy now,’ Uttar Pradesh Cabinet Minister Siddharth Nath Singh had said.
Earlier, UP Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath had declared his government would come out with a law to deal with love jihad and threatened the ones who don’t respect their daughters and sisters.
