The Rajasthan government is working to bring a law against luring and forced religious conversion in the state. The Law Department of the state is busy finalizing the draft of the bill against religious conversion. Similar Acts of Uttarakhand and Madhya Pradesh are being studied to bring the Bill in the next Assembly session.
The Law and Parliamentary Affairs minister Jogaram Patel has said that religious conversion will not be tolerated. We are working to bring a strong bill in the next Assembly session to stop this.
'There are compliant of conversion in the tribal areas. Taking advantage of the backwardness of poor and uneducated people, some institutions, and NGOs make false promises and convert them. In the new bill, we are making strict provisions against such conversions,' said Patel.
It is to mention here that a bill against religious conversion was passed twice in 2006 and 2008 during the Vasundhara Raje government. But then it could not get approval from the UPA government at the Centre. Now, many provisions of this Bill are likely to be retained in the new bill as well.
The sources said that there will be stringent provisions in the anti-conversion bill like imprisonment and heavy fines for those who support it, cancellation of registration of organizations involved in religious conversion. At the same time, the government is likely to make legal provisions like mandatory registration of live-in relationships. Besides this, information of conversation to the district magistrate may be made mandatory.
