Giving Holy Bible Isn’t Lure for Religious Conversion: Allahabad High Court

Lucknow: Distributing the Holy Bible and imparting good teachings cannot be termed as an “allurement for religious conversion” under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, said the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on Wednesday.

The high court’s Lucknow bench granted bail to two accused booked for allegedly luring people from the Scheduled Caste and the Scheduled Tribe communities for conversion to Christianity.

The appellants were sent to jail after the police registered an FIR on the basis of a complaint filed by a BJP leader in Ambedkar Nagar district on January 24.

The BJP leader had alleged that the two accused were luring people from the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities to convert to Christianity by distributing the Bible and imparting its teachings. .

The court observed, “Providing teaching, distributing the Holy Bible, encouraging children to get an education, organising assembly of villagers and performing bhandara, instructing the villagers not to enter into an altercation and not to take liquor does not amount to allurement under the 2021 act.”