A family of four, a Mulsim cleric and a barber from the Shahbad area of Rampur district have been booked under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020 for illegally performing the circumcision ceremony of two minor boys below 12 years old on Saturday.
As per reports, a Muslim man named Mahfooz married a non-Muslim from Uttarakhand who had lost her husband (a truck driver) in a road accident last month. She moved with her two minor boys to live with Mahfooz and his family in Shahbad’s Bairua village. The woman’s husband was reportedly a friend of Mahfooz.
Shortly after the wedding, Mahfooz’s family organized a circumcision ceremony for the minor boys without an advance declaration.
As per the UP anti-conversion law, an individual seeking to convert and religious converters (who perform the conversion) need to submit an advance declaration of the proposed religious conversion to the district magistrate. Upon receiving the declaration, the DM conducts a police inquiry into the intention, purpose, and cause of the proposed conversion. However, the said norms were not followed in this case.
The matter came to light when the villagers and the local members of the Hindu Jagran Manch got a hint of the ceremony and informed the police. Additional SP Sansaar Singh informed that Mahfooz’s parents and the barber have been arrested while the hunt for Mahfooz and his brother-in-law who are absconding, is on.
ASP Singh in a statement to The Times of India informed, “The FIR in this case has been registered by us as the boys are minors and their conversion was against the law, so we took self-cognizance after coming to know about the incident. We have booked Mahfooz, his parents, his brother-in-law who organized the ceremony, the cleric who conducted the conversion and the barber who performed the circumcision.”
‘Our names were changed after marriage’
Harjinder Kaur, the woman who had married Mahfooz informed that Mahfooz got her and her children from their village after she lost her husband Harkesh to an accident on May 08.
Kau revealed that she and her children were made to convert after marriage and Mahfooz even got their names changed.
Harjinder Kaur was named Gulistaan while her 12-year-old son Rahul and 10-year-old Sumit were named Farman and Anas. “He also conducted a circumcision ceremony of my sons,” Kaur confirmed to the police.
All the six accused have been booked under IPC section 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means) along with provisions of the Prohibition of the Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020.