JOIN USMuslim youth sentenced to 5 years' imprisonment in first conviction under UP 'Love Jihad' law
In what was being claimed to be the first conviction under the 'love jihad law' in Uttar Pradesh, a Muslim youth was sentenced to five years' imprisonment by a court in Amroha district in the state for trying to marry a Hindu girl under false pretenses by hiding his religion.
The court also imposed a fine of Rs 40,000 on the accused, identified as Mohammed Afzal, a resident of Sambhal district of the state.
According to reports, Afzal, who worked as a driver, had introduced himself as a Hindu to the girl, whose father owned a nursery in Hasanpur area in Amroha district. Afzal often used to go to the nursery to buy plants and had met the girl there.
Afzal had introduced himself as Arman Kohli to the girl, and the duo eloped last year. The girl's father had lodged a report with the local police alleging that Afzal had kidnapped the girl. Police later arrested Afzal from Delhi in April last year.
Afzal was charged under the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, which was enacted in December 2020, and POCSO (Prevention of Children from Sexual Offenses) Act as the girl was a minor. The special POCSO court pronounced its verdict in the case on Saturday.
UP was the first state to have a law against religious conversion through deceit, force, allurement or any other fraudulent means or for the purpose of marriage.
Although the Act nowhere used the term 'love jihad', the BJP leaders have maintained that it is a law to prevent what they allege ''rising cases of Hindu girls being lured through fraudulent ways into marriage by Muslim youths''.
The Act provides for a maximum of ten years' imprisonment and fine to the violators. It put religious conversion under certain situations under the category of an offence. According to the Act, religious conversion, if done under duress, force, allurement or any other fraudulent means or for the purpose of marriage would be an offence.
Anyone wanting to convert on one's own volition to marry would have to compulsorily give an application in this regard to the concerned district magistrate two months in advance.