While denying anticipatory bail to one Javed alias Jabid Ansari, who has been booked for forcefully converting a Hindu girl for marriage, the court said changing religion for marriage is not acceptable.
The Allahabad High Court said if people from the majority religion convert to other religions, the country is weakened.
The court said this while denying anticipatory bail to one Javed alias Jabid Ansari who has been booked under the Uttar Pradesh anti-conversion law for abduction and unlawful conversion of a 21-year-old Hindu woman for marriage.
The prosecution accused that Javed was already married but abducted the Hindu woman in Etah in Uttar Pradesh and forcefully converted her only for the purpose of marriage which was prohibited under section 5(1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act.
Since November last year, the Uttar Pradesh government of Yogi Adityanath has enacted a law which prohibits conversion in the state. And, according to the new law, if the conversion is for the purpose of marriage, it has to be approved by the magistrate after due scrutiny.
The victim’s father had registered an FIR on November 25 last year accusing Javed and his family members including sister, brother, sister-in-law and brother-in-law, of abducting the Hindu woman and forcefully converting her for marriage.
The victim in her statement before a magistrate had said that she was abducted on November 17 last year from a local market in Etah district of Uttar Pradesh and was taken to a lawyer's chamber in Karkardooma court in New Delhi. In the court premises, she was made to sign some documents in Urdu in the presence of some lawyers and was kept intoxicated and was not fully conscious all the time.
The Allahabad High Court Justice Shekhar Kumar Yadav took cognisance of this statement of the victim.
