Adityanath govt mulls ordinance against 'love jihad'
Lucknow: Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath has asked officials to formulate a strategy and bring an ordinance if required to prevent religious conversions in the name of love, an official said on Friday.
It has been seen in the recent past that women have been made to convert in the name of love and marriage and later subjected to cruelty and even murder," the official who did not wished to be named said.
"Taking a serious note of such incidents, the CM has directed that a concrete strategy be made to control such incidents, he added.
"It has often been seen that this is being done in an organised manner," he claimed. "If required, an ordinance can be brought for it, he added.
The aim is to ensure that such crimes are checked and effective action is taken against the culprits. All this is being taken into consideration, he added.
In Kanpur, the police had recently set up a Special Investigation Team to look into reports of "love jihad". Last year, the Uttar Pradesh State Law Commission had submitted a report to Adityanath, suggesting a new law to check forcible religious conversions.
"The report was submitted along with a draft legislation, Uttar Pradesh Freedom of Religion Bill, 2019," law commission secretary Sapna Tripathi had said.
The report was prepared after going through pre and post-independence laws in the country and neighbouring countries like Nepal, Myanmar, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and Pakistan besides keeping in mind court judgments.
"The commission is of the view that existing legal provisions are not enough to check religious conversions and on this serious matter, a new law is needed like in some other states," the report said.
The 268-page report included newspaper clippings regarding forcible conversions, international covenants on the right to religion, anti-conversion laws in neighbouring countries and India.
It said states like Madhya Pradesh, Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Himachal Pradesh and Uttrakhand had made special laws to ban conversions by force, fraud, marriage or allurement.
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No evidence of arms seizure in Sandeshkhali, recovered items might be brought by CBI: CM Mamata
Kulti (WB), Apr 27: West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee on Saturday said there was "no evidence" of arms seizure in Sandeshkhali, asserting that CBI teams conducted searches without informing the state police.
She expressed skepticism regarding the operations, stating that the recovered items "might have been brought by officials of the central agency".
“Even if a firecracker goes off in Bengal, the NIA, CBI, NSG are coming to investigate. It seems that a war is going on. The state police were not informed. It is not known what was found. There was no evidence. The seized items might have been brought by them (CBI) in a car," Banerjee said here.
She was addressing an election rally for TMC's Asansol Lok Sabha candidate Shatrughan Sinha.
The CBI on Friday seized arms and ammunition, including a police service revolver and foreign-made firearms, during searches at two premises of an associate of now-suspended TMC leader Shajahan Sheikh in Sandeshkhali, officials said.
The searches were conducted in connection with the January attack on an Enforcement Directorate (ED) team by a mob that was allegedly instigated by Sheikh, who was arrested by the West Bengal Police on February 29 in the case.
Teams of the Central Bureau Investigation (CBI), the bomb detection squad, the National Security Guard (NSG), the central paramilitary forces and the West Bengal Police were part of the searches at the village -- a riverine delta -- on the fringes of the Sunderbans in North 24 Parganas district.
