In a 1st, man gets 5 years in jail under Uttar Pradesh's anti-conversion law

LUCKNOW: A 26-year-old carpenter was served five years' imprisonment in the first conviction under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, by an Amroha court on Saturday.
Additional director general of police, prosecution, Ashutosh Pandey, confirmed to TOI that since the introduction of the new law in December 2021, Saturday's conviction by the Amroha court was the first under the new law.

Amroha additional district judge (Pocso court) Kapila Raghav on Saturday announced the sentence of five years on Afzal and also imposed a penalty of Rs 40,000.
Narrating the case, Gajendra Pal Singh, investigation officer at Hasanpur police station, told TOI that on April 4, 2021, Amroha police had arrested Afzal from Delhi and booked him under the state's anti-conversion law for kidnapping a 16-year-old girl belonging to another community.

"Prior to that on April 2, the victim girl's father, who ran a plant nursery, had claimed that his daughter had left home for work but did not return. He had also told the police that two local persons had spotted his daughter with a youth. The girl's family had told the police they came to know that the teenager was in regular touch with Afzal, who used to visit her father's nursery to purchase plants," he said.
The Hasanpur police then filed a case against Afzal and charged him with kidnapping and invoked the anti-conversion law.
"We filed a chargesheet on May 31, 2021, in the case and asked prosecution for a quick trial," said Singh.