Uttar Pradesh governor Anandiben Patel has promulgated the love Jihad law, three days after the state Cabinet cleared the ordinance.
Love Jihad law is a prohibition of unlawful conversion.
The UP Cabinet cleared the ordinance on November 24 shortly after the Allahabad High Court upheld the right to freedom of choice of individuals and put down its own earlier order in which it had stated that conversion for the sake of marriage was not acceptable.
The new law mandates the imprisonment of the person accused between one-five years if convicted of carrying out forceful conversions for marriage. Forced conversion will be a non-bailable offence.
“We saw that the religious conversions were part of ‘love jihad’ conspiracy. There is a big conspiracy behind these conversions which was unravelled by our security agencies,” UP Minister Mohsin Raza had said earlier this week.
Strict action would be taken against organisations that carry out mass conversions
Responsibility to prove conversion was not carried out forcefully, or via other inappropriate means, depends upon the person accused of such conversions
For any conversion into another religion, individuals will have to pledge before a designated officer that such an act was not carried out by forced means or inappropriate measures
