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On 18 June, the Vadodara Police registered the first criminal case under Gujarat’s newly amended Freedom of Religion Act, or what is colloquially called anti-conversion law, reported The Indian Express.
Gujarat’s newly amended Freedom of Religion Act which came into force on 15 June imposes stricter punishment for aiding and abetting “fraudulent or forced religious conversion through marriage”.
A 24-year-old woman filed the complaint, alleging that she met a person in 2018 through a social networking site, where the accused used a fake identity and lured her into a relationship by promising her a “modern life” after marriage. Later, he raped her on four occasions at a hotel as well as in the flat of a co-accused, the police said.
The Vadodara police swiftly acted upon the complaint, lodged the FIR, and went on to arrest Qureshi and his family after getting them tested for COVID19.
The victim, who belongs to a Scheduled Caste, also alleged that the accused and his family hurled casteist abuses at her when she refused to follow Islam.
Besides being booked under Section 4 of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill, 2021 for forcing conversion by luring and cheating into marriage, the accused were charged under IPC sections 498A for domestic violence, rape of a woman multiple times [376(2)(n)], unnatural sex (377), voluntarily causing a woman with a child to miscarry against her will (312, 313), intentional provoking to break public peace (504), criminal intimidation [506(2)], criminal conspiracy [120(b)], as well as various sections of the Scheduled Castes and the Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities ) Act,1989.
(With inputs from Indian Express)
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