224 'concerned citizens' back UP's anti-Love Jihad law

A group of over 200 persons, including former judges and over a hundred retired bureaucrats, have issued a statement in support of the Love Jihad law by the Uttar Pradesh government 

The statement also criticises another group of ex-bureaucrats for allegedly distorting Ganga-Jamni culture.

The "224 concerned citizens" countered an earlier letter written by 104 former civil servants against the alleged misuse of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020.

They wrote, "It is a matter of concern that one group of retired civil servants, visibly biased with an anti-establishment attitude despite overtly posing as ‘non-political’, repeatedly avail of every opportunity to put the Indian democracy, its institutions, and persons legitimately holding high offices in poor light before the whole world by making ill-considered public statements, or writing misconceived communications to various authorities."

The group said that the law cannot be generalised as anti-Muslim and illegal simply on the basis of a solitary incident of the alleged lapse in Moradabad while implementing the UP Ordinance prohibiting unlawful conversions or regulating other conversions in UP.

They stated that the new law rightly provides that the marriages done for the sole purpose of unlawful conversion can be declared void by the family courts on a petition by any of the two parties in a marriage.

They also said that the law safeguards the dignity of women involved in marriages leading to conversions, and further makes a special provision in favour of minors, women or anyone belonging to Scheduled Castes / Scheduled Tribes.