Goa’s power minister Sudin Dhavalikar expressed on Thursday his concern that people might take the law into their own hands, if forced religious conversions were not stopped in the state.
Dhavalikar’s comment followed the arrest of a Protestant pastor, Dominic D'Souza, who was booked along with his wife Joan for carrying out an allegedly forced conversion. D’Souza was held after a person, who was approached by the pastor, lodged a formal complaint with the police.
“Media has proved it more than us (government) that conversions are taking place. It should be stopped. If it is not stopped, then people will take law into their hands and unwanted things will happen,” the power minister told reporters at a media briefing at the State Secretariat.
Dhavalikar is a legislator from the Maharashtrawadi Gomantak Party, which entered into a post-poll alliance with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.
As a former deputy Chief Minister, Dhavalikar also said that he supported Chief Minister Pramod Sawant's announcement to bring in a new law to bar religious conversions in the coastal state, where nearly a third of the population largely includes Catholics and Muslims.
The issue of D’Souza’s arrest last week has taken a political turn, as it comes less than a month after Chief Minister Pramod Sawant’s statement, in which he said that religious conversions were rife in Goa.
Days after the arrest of D'Souza, the case was handed over to the Crime Branch of the Goa Police by the state Home Department.
Published 02 June 2022, 16:06 IST