Ever since the controversial Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Act, 2021 was passed in 2020, the state has seen a significant rise in the number of First Information Reports (FIRs) filed against alleged religious conversions to the Christian faith.
Going through 170 FIRs filed across 40 districts in Uttar Pradesh under the controversial anti-conversion law, this author found at least 700 individuals have been accused of unlawful religious conversion since 2020. The total number of accused under the Act are not known.
Notably, in four cases of alleged conversion, the anti-conversion law was not applied – two cases used the Gangster Act, and two other cases used sections like criminal intimidation and disrupting public order. Further, over 200 accused were unnamed or unidentified persons in these FIRs.
The Quint has found out that Azamgarh saw the highest number with 20 FIRs, followed by Sitapur (14), Fatehpur (13), Jaunpur (12), Ambedkar Nagar (8) and Gorakhpur (8). Our data recorded one case from 2020, 12 from 2021, 59 from 2022 and 99 from 2023.
This story was originally published in thequint.com. Read the full story here.