Uttar Pradesh
No evidence against Muslim man accused in forced religious conversion: UP govt admits
Lucknow/IBNS: The Uttar Pradesh government, run by Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), on Thursday admitted there was no evidence against a Muslim man, who was accused in a forced conversion of religion, media reports said.
Two days after an ordinance criminalising forced conversions in Uttar Pradesh was brought, 32-year old Nadeem and his brother Salman were named in a complaint filed by labour contractor Akshay Kumar Tyagi in Muzaffarnagar.
Akshay had alleged that Nadeem, a labourer, used to visit his home and later trapped his wife Parul in a "web of love".
However, the state government on Thursday told the Allahabad High Court that there was no evidence against Nadeem who had filed a plea to scrap the First Information Report (FIR) against him.
Last month, the court had given a shield from arrest to Nadeem until the next hearing date which was Thursday.
The court has extended the protection from arrest and posted the case for a fresh hearing on Jan 15.
Several BJP-ruled states last year brought the anti-conversion law, dubbed as "love jihad" law by right-wing supporters, which has been allegedly used to harass people having inter-religion marriages on a number of occasions, if not all.
"Love jihad" is a term used by the right-wing groups to refer to a marriage between Muslim men and Hindu women, which they consider as a trick to convert the women.
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