Hindu transgender individuals alleged that some muslim transgender persons of forced to convert to Islam and were intentionally injected with HIV if they refused. Know about anti-conversion laws.
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INDORE: A major controversy has emerged in Indore’s Nandlalpura area, where a group of Hindu transgender individuals has made grave allegations against some Muslim transgender persons, sparking communal tension and public outrage.
At the center of the issue is Sakina Guru, a prominent leader from the Hindu transgender community, who has accused Payal (alias Naeem Ansari) and Seema Haji (alias Farzana), both originally from Malegaon, of coercing Hindu transgender persons to convert to Islam.
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According to Sakina, those who resisted the forced conversions were allegedly intentionally infected with HIV using contaminated syringes. She claimed that nearly 60 transgender individuals have been infected as a result, with 12 currently undergoing treatment at the Anti-Retroviral Therapy (ART) Centre of MY Hospital.
The seriousness of the allegations has led to a flurry of legal and administrative activity. Advocate Sachin Sonkar, who is representing Sakina, has filed formal complaints with several top authorities, including the Chief Justice of India, the Prime Minister’s Office, the Chief Minister’s Office, the Collector, and the Commissioner of Police, along with video evidence purportedly supporting the claims.
He has also introduced the term “Kinnar Jihad” to describe what he alleges is a targeted campaign to spread HIV and enforce religious conversions among the transgender community. He further claims that nearly 100 HIV-positive transgender individuals, allegedly infected through this campaign, are presently living in Indore without proper medical care or monitoring, posing a serious public health risk.
This disturbing situation has resulted in repeated clashes between the two transgender groups, leading to the registration of multiple FIRs in Chandan Nagar and Vijay Nagar police stations on charges including assault and kidnapping. One particularly serious altercation occurred at Pandrinath police station, where tensions escalated to such a degree that the Station In-Charge, TI Kapil Sharma, was transferred.
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Despite the growing unrest and legal complaints, Sakina and her supporters alleged continued police inaction, culminating in a protest and a threat of suicide from her group to draw attention to the issue.
In response to the rising tensions and gravity of the situation, Indore Police Commissioner Santosh Kumar Singh has constituted a Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the matter thoroughly. The SIT is headed by DCP Rishikesh Meena (Zone 4) and includes Additional DCP Dishes Agrawal, IPS officer Aditya Patale, and ACP Hemant Chauhan. The investigation is now underway and is being treated with utmost sensitivity, given the communal, legal, and public health implications involved.
Anti-Conversion Law
The Constitution of India guarantees every citizen the right to freely profess, practise, and propagate religion, and allows all religious communities to manage their religious affairs, subject to public order, morality, and health.
However, no central law currently regulates or restricts religious conversions. In fact, the Union Law Ministry clarified in 2015 that Parliament lacks the legislative competence to enact such a law. Although Private Member Bills seeking to regulate conversions have been introduced in Parliament since 1954, none have been passed.
Despite the absence of central legislation, several states have enacted their own ‘Freedom of Religion’ laws to prohibit conversions by force, fraud, or inducement. These include Odisha (1967), Madhya Pradesh (1968), Arunachal Pradesh (1978), Chhattisgarh (2000 and 2006), Gujarat (2003), Himachal Pradesh (2006 and 2019), Jharkhand (2017), and Uttarakhand (2018). Notably, the Himachal Pradesh (2019) and Uttarakhand laws declare marriages void if they are done solely for the purpose of religious conversion. Some other states, like Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan, attempted similar laws, but they were either repealed or not given assent.
In more recent developments, citing a rise in forced conversions, the Uttar Pradesh Law Commission in 2019 recommended new legislation. This led to the UP Ordinance of 2020, which was later followed by Madhya Pradesh’s Ordinance in January 2021 to regulate religious conversions more stringently.
The Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021, criminalizes:
- Forced or fraudulent conversion
- Conversion through marriage
- Conversion without prior district authority approval
Under this law, the burden of proof lies on the person accused of facilitating the conversion, and if convicted, they can face imprisonment and heavy fines.
Section 5 of Madhya Pradesh’s Ordinance in January 2021:
Section 5 of the Act lays down strict penalties for violating provisions related to unlawful conversions. It states that any person who converts or attempts to convert another through misrepresentation, allurement, force, coercion, undue influence, marriage, or fraudulent means shall face 1 to 5 years of imprisonment along with a minimum fine of Rs. 25,000.
If the victim belongs to a Scheduled Caste, Scheduled Tribe, or is a minor, the punishment increases to 2 to 10 years of imprisonment and a minimum fine of Rs. 50,000. Further, any person who intentionally hides their religion during marriage to deceive someone of another faith may be punished with 3 to 10 years in prison and a minimum fine of Rs. 50,000.
In cases of mass conversion, defined as converting two or more persons at once, the penalty is 5 to 10 years of imprisonment and at least Rs. 1 lakh fine. For repeat offences, the law provides for a harsher sentence of 5 to 10 years with a fine, indicating a strong stance against repeated violations.
In this context, the allegations raised by Sakina, if proven, could potentially invoke provisions of this anti-conversion law. The claims of coercion, inducement, and threat fall within the definitions prohibited under the Act.
Additionally, if the allegations of HIV infection are proven to be intentional, it could open up charges under IPC sections relating to grievous hurt, attempt to murder, and even sections of the HIV/AIDS (Prevention and Control) Act, 2017.
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