7 Months of UP's Anti-Conversion Law: 162 People Booked in 63 Cases

The first chargesheet under Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion ‘love jihad’ laws has been filed against a 22-year-old carpenter in Bijnor, for allegedly kidnapping a Dalit woman last month.

(Photo: The Quint/Kamran Akhtar)

A total of 63 cases were registered by the UP police till June 2021, under the controversial Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020, since it was enacted in November last year.

In July, UP police has already registered two fresh cases including one in Pilibhit and other in Agra.

Between December 2020 to June 2021, maximum of 16 cases were registered in eight districts of Meerut zone followed by 15 cases in various districts of Bareilly zone.

The law which claims to tackle the alleged conspiracy theory of 'Love Jihad', a proposition of right wing groups that Hindu women are being forcibly converted, has provision of jail term of upto 10 years if found guilty.

Seven months into the enactment of the law, as many as 162 suspects have been booked in these 63 cases registered across the state, as per data accessed by The Quint from the office of UP's additional director general of police (law and order).

Out of the total cases registered, police has filed chargesheet in 31 cases and investigation is underway in 25 of the cases.

Interestingly, as per the data, police has filed final report in seven of the cases after no sufficient evidence was found to press charges on accusation in the complaint based on which FIR was registered.

Meanwhile, of the 162 booked under the anti-conversion law, 101 were sent to jail. Later 21 among them secured bail while 80 are still behind bars pending investigations or trials. The data shows 21 of the suspects in these cases are evading arrest.

In his brief reaction on the cases of forced conversion in the state, Mukul Goyal, director general of police who took charge on 1 July said, "Guilty won't be spared and the innocent will not harassed."