Muslim body moves court against arrests made under anti-conversion law

Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind filed a petition against the arrest made against the anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh. The petition alleged that the Uttar Pradesh government is harassing Muslim men by registering cases against them in the name of 'love jihad.'

New Delhi: Jamiat-Ulama-i-Hind moved the Allahabad high court and filed a petition against the arrests under the anti-conversion law in Uttar Pradesh.

The petition said the government was harassing Muslim men in the name of the anti-conversion law which is against the basic rights of a person.

The Lucknow bench of the high court may take the case on Tuesday or Wednesday, according to sources.

In a statement, Gulzar Azmi, general secretary, legal cell, Jamiat Ulama-E-Maharashtra said that the aggrieved kin of the arrested men had approached Jamiat Ulama-e-Hind president Maulana Arshad Madani and asked him for legal help.

"We have filed the petition in the court and we hope that the men are freed soon," Azmi said.

The petition alleged that the UP government is harassing Muslim men by registering a case against them in the name of 'love jihad'.

The UP government is denying these men their rights enshrined in the Constitution," it said.

The petition said Muslim youth is being "targeted and demonised" using the Uttar Pradesh ordinance on inter-faith marriages and religious conversion.

The Jamiat further said that even women have been booked under the law who have nothing to do with the registered case.

Last week, Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind approached the Supreme Court challenging the Constitutional validity of the Uttar Pradesh Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020.

The organisation filed an intervention application in the already pending pleas challenging the Ordinance passed by the Uttar Pradesh government and the Uttarakhand Freedom of Religion Act, 2018.