Interfaith marriages No nationwide anti-conversion law planned: Centre
New Delhi/IBNS: The Centre on Tuesday clarified that there is no plan to implement any law to ban religious conversions or interfaith marriages nationwide as the subject falls under the dominion of states.
"Public order and police are state subjects as per the seventh schedule to the constitution of India. Hence prevention, detection, registration, investigation and prosecution of offences related to religious conversions are primarily the concerns of the state governments and union territory administrations," Minister of State in the Ministry of Home Affairs G Kishan Reddy said.
"Action is taken as per existing laws by the law enforcing agencies whenever instances of violation come to notice," he said.
The minister's statement was in response to questions raised by five Congress MPs from Kerala who had asked whether the government believed that forced conversions were taking place because of interfaith marriages.
They also asked if the Centre was planning to implement any law to curb forced conversions.
This comes after Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, both BJP-ruled state, adopted an anti-conversion ordinance amid debate over "love jihad" - the right-wing conspiracy theory that Muslim men manipulate Hindu women to have them converted to their religion.
These new laws, which have clauses like needing a judge to sign-off on a planned conversion months before marriage, are in addition to existing legislation against religious conversions drawn up in multiple states over the past five decades starting with Odisha in 1967, then under Congress rule.
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