UP CM Yogi claims 'Love jihad a conspiracy to make Kerala an Islamic state' at Kasargod

Kicking off BJP's Vijaya Yatra, Uttar Pradesh CM Yogi Adityanath on Sunday, alleged that the UDF government was sleeping on the 'conspiracy of making Kerala an Islamic state' in the guise of 'Love Jihad'.  Addressing BJP's poll campaign in Kasargod, he claimed that while the Kerala High Court had brought to attention 'Love Jihad' in 2009, the government paid no heed to it. Boasting his own state's Love Jihad law, he said that people in Kerala must wake up and vote for BJP.

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Yogi: "Kerala must wake up on Love Jihad" 

"In 2009, Kerala HC brought govt attention towards Love Jihad. But the govt did not make any law on Love Jihad over here. HC said Love Jihad is a conspiracy to make Kerala state an Islamic state, but the govt is sleeping and does not care about security and this anti-Kerala, anti-India conspiracy. You have to wake up and choose BJP. We can guarantee safety and security. In UP we have made a law against the Love Jihad and started apprehending people," said Yogi Adityanath.

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Uttar Pradesh's Love Jihad law

While the law does not mention 'love Jihad' or defines the term, it makes forceful religious conversion, including through marriage, punishable with a jail term of 1-5 years with Rs 15,000 penalty. Moreover, if the woman is a minor or belongs to Scheduled Caste or Scheduled Tribe, the jail term will be between 3-10 years and the penalty upto Rs 25,000. The law also punishes mass conversions with jail term is of 3-10 years and fine of Rs. 50,000 on the organisations conducting it. Within 1 month of passing the law in UP, 51 arrests and 14 cases were filed under the new 'Love Jihad law', leading to Opposition leaders allege that the law was aimed at 'persecuting Muslim men'. Following UP, Madhya Pradesh too passed such a law while Haryana, Karnataka, Assam and Gujarat - all BJP-ruled, have promised to pass a similar law. 

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What is 'Love Jihad'?

Love Jihad is a term referring to an alleged campaign by Muslim men to convert Hindu girls under the pretext of love. NCW chairperson Rekha Sharma has often claimed that Kerala has 'rampant' love jihad, adding that they (alluding to Muslims) were luring women - not just Hindus, but even Christians and forcefully converting them in Kerala. After investigation, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) stated that it though it had found a common mentor in some of the Kerala cases in August 2017, there was no evidence of attempted or forced conversion in such cases. In 2020, G Kishan Reddy told the Parliament that 'Love Jihad' is not defined under the current laws and that no such case has been reported by any of the Central agencies. Currently, anti-conversion laws are in force in Arunachal Pradesh, Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, Jharkhand, and Uttarakhand. 

UP's 'Love Jihad' law explained: What is it and how is different from other states' laws