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UP Police File First case Under New ‘Love Jihad’ Law

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New Delhi, 30 Nov 2020 [Fik/News Sources]: The police in Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Uttar Pradesh have registered the first case under the new ordinance against ‘love jihad’ , a day after the Governor promulgated the ordinance on Friday.

The Hindu reported that an FIR was lodged against Owais Ahmad in the Deorania police station in Bareilly under Sections 3 and 5 of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020.

The case was filed after a complaint by Tikaram, a resident of Sharifnagar village, late on Friday. Ahmad had developed a friendship with Tikaram’s daughter during their education and wanted to “coerce, coax and allure her into converting”, Tikaram said in the complaint.

The complainant alleged that the accused was applying pressure on the family to give into his demands despite disapprovals.

SP (Rural) Bareilly Sansar Singh told Hindu that the police had also registered a case of kidnapping against Ahmad, who, Singh said, “was pressuring her to convert from her religion and marry.”

Earlier this week, the UP government cleared an ordinance regulating inter-faith marriages. According to the ordinance, religious conversion for marriage is a punishable offence, with imprisonment that can go up to 10 years.

The new law came days after CM Yogi Adityanath announced that his government would bring in a law to curb ‘love jihad’--a bogus term to describe a conspiracy theory that Muslim men hoodwink women into love and marry for conversion to Islam.

Adityanath had threatened Muslim men with violent consequences if they “hide their name and identity and play with the honour of daughters and sisters.”

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