State govt to enact law against religious conversions, demolish illegal churches

The Maharashtra government will enact a strict law to curb cases of religious conversion and also demolish unauthorised churches that have come up across the state, especially in tribal districts, in the next six months, revenue minister Chandrashekhar Bawankule said in the state assembly on Wednesday.

- Surendra P Gangan

The announcement was made after Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs Anup Agrawal, Sudhir Mungantiwar, Sanjay Kute, and Gopichand Padalkar alleged that tribals were being converted to Christianity through illegal churches built using foreign funding for the promotion of the religion. They also demanded a mecha-

nism to bar converted tribals from availing benefits under welfare schemes meant for Scheduled Castes (SCs).

The MLAs did not specify how many such illegal churches had been built or where exactly the funding came from.