86 PEOPLE BOOKED UNDER NEW LAW ON CONVERSION FOR MARRIAGE, UP GOVT TELLS COURT

NEW DELHI: The Uttar Pradesh government has told the Allahabad high court that its contentious new anti-conversion ordinance didn’t target any particular religion and was equally applicable to all forms of forced conversion, not just interfaith marriages. But a scrutiny of the statistics submitted by the Yogi Adityanath government in court presents an intriguing picture.

A total of 86 persons were booked in 16 first information reports (FIRS) since the Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, was notified on November 28 last year.

Fifty-four people were arrested. Out of the 86 people booked, 79 are Muslims. All these 79 have been accused of similar offences – allegedly enticing a woman and forcing her to convert to Islam. The accused in two FIRS were nonmuslims.

The allegations against them relate to coercion for converting women to Christianity.

These statistics are part of the state government’s affidavit presented before a high court bench led by chief justice Govind Mathur on Thursday, in response to a batch of public interest litigations (PILS) that claimed the law violated several constitutional rights.

The families of some of those arrested alleged that they were picked up on trumped-up charges.

THE UP ORDINANCE PRESCRIBES A JAIL TERM UP TO 10 YEARS AND FINE UP TO ₹25,000 FOR CONVERSION UNDER MARRIAGE, FRAUD, COERCION OR ENTICEMENT