BY Ashwini Sharma / Millennium Post
shimla: Barely three months to go to the polls, Himachal Pradesh’s BJP government has tweaked the 16-year-old law the second time to make religious conversions a deterrent act to be dealt with a higher punishment of up to 10 years jail.
No reservation to converts, concealing religion for marriage punishable and illegally claiming benefits will also be an offence under new law.
The state Assembly, which met in Shimla for its last session, passed the amendment to Himachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion (Amendment) Bill 2022. In 2006, the Himachal Pradesh government led by Virbhadra Singh became the first Congress-ruled state in the country to pass an anti-conversion law following incidence of conversions involving mainly poor and unprivileged Dalits in the interiors of Shimla, Kullu, Mandi and Sirmaur districts.
The law was later challenged in the High Court by a Delhi-based organisation. The Court struck down only few provisions of the Act yet saving the Act from being quashed.
The Christian organisations had also complained against the law to the Congress High Command but Virbhadra Singh stood by the legislation.
In 2019, the BJP government amended the law to raise the quantum of punishment from three years to seven years and also broadened the scope of the law to deal with what Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) called “love jihad.” Some of the provisions struck down by the High Court were also replaced.
This story was originally published in millenniumpost.in . Read the full story here
