Mumbai: The Maharashtra cabinet Thursday approved the draft of an anti-conversion law aimed at preventing forceful religious conversions.
Informing the media about it, minister Nitesh Rane, who has been vocal over the issue of ‘love jihad’—a term used by Hindutva outfits to allege a conspiracy by Muslim men to convert Hindu women through wedlock—said a government resolution will be issued soon.
“All the technical points within this law will be shared with the public very soon. But as a Hindutvawadi karyakarta, I am very happy. Hindutvawadi organisations and workers have struggled hard to bring a law around this just like how it is in Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat. In fact, this bill will be even stricter,” Rane told the media in Mumbai.
He added that once the bill becomes law, forceful religious conversion will be treated as a non-bailable offence.
महाराष्ट्र में धर्मांतरण विरोधी कानून को आज राज्य कैबिनेट मीटिंग में मंज़ूरी दी गई है। अँटी कन्व्हर्जन एक्ट 2026 के तहत इस कानून का सरकारी GR जल्द ही जारी किया जाएगा।
📍०५-०३-२०२६ । विधानभवन, मुंबई pic.twitter.com/LQyaMVxyQc
— Nitesh Rane (@NiteshNRane) March 5, 2026
This development comes after neighbouring Gujarat, another NDA-ruled state, proposed an amendment to its marriage registration law, making parental consent mandatory. While proposing the amendment, Gujarat’s Deputy CM Harsh Sanghavi said it is aimed at protecting young Hindu girls who are being cheated in the name of “love”.
The Maharashtra government has in the past indicated its intention to introduce an anti-conversion law. The BJP-led state government shifted its focus to interfaith marriages after the murders of Shraddha Walkar and actor Tunisha Sharma in 2022.
Born and raised in Maharashtra’s Palghar, Walkar, 27, was murdered allegedly by her live-in partner Aftab Poonawala at their rented accommodation in Delhi. Sharma, meanwhile, was found dead on the set of a TV show. Mumbai Police arrested her co-star and former boyfriend Sheezan Khan on charges of ‘abetment to suicide’. He was later released on bail.
In 2023, a committee was set up in Maharashtra to gather information about intercaste and interfaith couples, and to enquire whether families of the women involved are estranged.
Since securing a landslide in Maharashtra in 2024, the ruling Mahayuti led by CM Devendra Fadnavis has repeatedly expressed its commitment to enact a law against “love jihad”.
In 2025, the Maharashtra Government set up a seven-member committee headed by the state’s director general of police (DGP) to study the legal aspects of such a legislation.
Similar laws to deal with forced religious conversions are in place in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Odisha, Haryana, Karnataka, Jharkhand and Rajasthan.
(Edited by Amrtansh Arora)
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