28-yr-old held in MP under new religious conversion law

OFFICIALS SAY THE ACCUSED CONTINUED TO PRESSURE WOMAN FOR MARRIAGE AND CONVERSION

Madhya Pradesh police have arrested a man under its new law which penalises religious conversions through fraudulent means, following a complaint filed by a woman in Barwani district, an official said on Tuesday.

“On the basis of a written complaint filed by a 22- year-old woman, a 28-year-old man was arrested on Monday on charges of rape and under provisions of the Freedom of Religion ordinance,” Barwani police station in-charge Rajesh Yadav said.

“This is the first case in Barwani under the new legislation,” he said.

Yadav said the woman in her complaint alleged that the accused had introduced himself to her as Sunny, and she later came to know that he was a married Muslim man. The woman then started keeping a distance from him, but he allegedly continued to pressurise her for marriage and conversion, the official said.

“This is an issue of ‘love jihad’, so I made a complaint. The man is a Muslim and got into a relationship with me by posing as a Hindu. He beat me up. He physically exploited me for four years,” the woman said while talking to media

K’taka man to be charged with rape

Uttar Pradesh Police is set to drop charges of forced conversion and abduction against a 22-year-old Muslim man from Karnataka but charge him with rape, after a 19-year-old woman told a magistrate on Tuesday that the accused didn’t kidnap or convert her, but raped her on the pretext of marriage.

The development came days after the woman’s father lodged a complaint against the 22-yearold Karnataka resident for allegedly kidnapping his daughter and forcing her to convert.

On Tuesday, the woman from Gorakhpur told police that she went to Karnataka on her own for a job, police said. The woman and the man were brought back to Gorakhpur from Karnataka on Monday by UP Police.