India’s anti-conversion law exposed after Muslim men freed from fabricated charges
Judges accuse police of fabricating charges under anti-conversion law, exposing misuse of ‘love jihad’ narrative to target Muslims
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — A high court in India has denounced police in Uttar Pradesh, the country’s most populous state, for unlawfully imprisoning five Muslim men under a controversial anti-conversion law, exposing what rights advocates call a dangerous pattern of religious persecution under the Hindu nationalist government.
The Allahabad High Court ruled on October 30 that the case against the men — accused of luring a Hindu woman to convert to Islam — was fabricated and driven by political zeal rather than evidence. The judges ordered the state to pay 50,000 Indian rupees ($565) in compensation and condemned the police for what they called a “vexatious and shameful” misuse of law.
The ruling highlights the growing misuse of so-called “love jihad” laws — legislation passed in several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-ruled states that criminalize religious conversion through marriage.
Hindu nationalist groups promote the conspiracy theory that Muslim men seduce Hindu women to convert them to Islam, a claim dismissed by India’s own courts and scholars as baseless propaganda.
In this case, the five Muslim men, including Ubaid Kha, were arrested in September after a Hindu man, Pankaj Kumar, alleged that they had abducted his wife and forced her to convert. Police charged them under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, and under criminal abduction provisions.
But just days later, the woman gave a sworn statement saying she had left home voluntarily after facing domestic abuse — not coercion. Despite her testimony, police kept Kha in jail for six weeks, which the court described as “an appalling failure of justice.”
“This petition is a glaring example of the state authorities falling and scrambling over each other to score brownie points,” the bench of Justice Abdul Moin and Justice Babita Rani wrote in its order, directing the government to compensate Ubaid Kha and sanction the officers responsible.
The case underscores how Uttar Pradesh, governed by hardline chief minister Yogi Adityanath, has become a testing ground for laws and policing practices that disproportionately target Muslims. Since 2021, the state has filed dozens of “love jihad” cases, many of which later collapsed for lack of evidence.
Rights groups say the arrests fit into a broader pattern of state-backed Islamophobia — where Muslims are vilified as predators and interfaith love is criminalized. “These laws are not about protecting women; they are about policing religion,” said one legal advocate in Lucknow.
The court’s decision to not only free the accused but also penalize the police is being seen as a rare moment of judicial accountability in a climate of impunity. It ordered part of the fine to be paid directly to Kha, who was “forced to languish in jail despite the victim’s clear statement.”
Observers say the judgment sends a signal to authorities across India, where bulldozer demolitions, false charges, and selective arrests have become tools of communal control under the ruling party. But for the men falsely accused, justice has come late.
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