“Many cases of forced conversions have been recorded in the FIR,” the affidavit states. “This conversion” will therefore be “against the choice of the individual who wants to remain in society with the member of the other religion, but does not want to leave his faith.” This law was passed by the UP government to combat “illegal religious conversions” and combat the “jihad of love” described as an alleged conspiracy by Muslim men to convert Hindu women to Islam by courting and marrying them. Previous laws passed in India to review conversion include:[10] The anti-conversion law “protects the public interest” and maintains “public order,” the affidavit says — it is not community thinking, but the community interest that the law protects. The ordinance defines – temptation, coercion, conversion, violence, fraudulent means, mass conversion, religion, religious transformation, undue influence and illegal conversion. [25] He defines temptation as “any gift, satisfaction, easy money or material realization, whether in the form of money or in kind, employment, free education in a prestigious school run by a religious organization, or better lifestyle, divine pleasure or otherwise.” A religion converter is defined as “a person of any religion who performs an act of conversion from one religion to another religion and under any name whatsoever, such as Father, Karmkandi, Maulvi or Mulla, etc.”[26] Before the independence of India, during the British Raj, Hindu princely states such as Kota, Patna, Surguja, Udaipur and Kalahandi passed laws restricting religious conversions “to preserve the religious identity of Hindus against Muslims.” The Madhya Pradesh government doubled the prison sentence for forced religious conversions for marriage from five years to 10 years in its bill against the “jihad of love”, while the Haryana government formed a three-member drafting committee to draft a law on the subject. The governments of Karnataka and Assam have made similar announcements. “It`s a fact that the two were in love. She knew he was a Muslim and went to court to marry him, […] Now that we had received a complaint about a violent conversion, we registered the case and proceeded with the arrest. Whether it is justified or not, it is the court that decides. In the nine months since the regulation was promulgated, police arrested at least 189 people in connection with anti-conversion cases. In December last year, for example, a Muslim man was arrested in Moradabad with his brothers under the anti-conversion law. His Hindu wife miscarried after five days of alleged torture at Nari Niketan and told ThePrint that Bajrang Dal activists dragged her and her husband to the police station. The man and his brother, who was also arrested, were later released.

The state government told the court that cases of forced conversions were also being investigated on national security grounds and attached a report from the U.P. ATS. Of the 79 cases registered in Uttar Pradesh in July this year against illegal conversion under the 2020 law, indictments were filed in 50 cases, while a final report was filed in seven cases, according to a document filed by the state government with the Supreme Court of Allahabad. The Prohibition of Illegal Religious Conversion of Uttar Pradesh Ordinance 2020 (Hindi: Uttar Pradesh Vidhi Virudh Dharma Samparivartan Pratishedh Adhyadhesh, 2020), referred to by most media as Love Jihad Law[1], is an anti-conversion law enacted by the government of Uttar Pradesh, India. The State Cabinet of Uttar Pradesh approved the ordinance on November 24, 2020, after which it was approved and signed by the governor of the state, Anandiben Patel, on November 28, 2020. [3] [4] According to the affidavit, as of July, 79 cases had been registered in the state under the anti-conversion law. In 50 cases, indictments were submitted, in seven cases final reports. The investigation was ongoing in 22 cases. When providing data under the new law, the state government`s affidavit states that “the claim that no official data is available to support the claim that the social fabric is threatened by [violent conversions] is misleading, misunderstood, unrecognized, unrecognized, and denied.” In January 2021, 224 retired judges, civil servants, diplomats and veterans of the armed forces wrote a letter to the CM in support of the up law against “illegal conversion”. [46] Uttar Pradesh`s new law on forced conversions delivers on Prime Minister Adityanath`s promise to tackle the “jihad of love” – a conspiracy theory promoted by right-wing Hindu activists claiming that Hindu women are forcibly converted by Muslims through marriage.