By Online Desk
MUMBAI: In a disturbing development, the Maharashtra government has set up a committee to gather information on inter-faith and inter-caste marriage couples and the maternal families of the women involved if they are estranged. The panel will have 13 members from government and non-government fields to study policies regarding related welfare schemes and laws.
The opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has condemned the “retrograde” step, stating that the Eknath Shinde government had no right to spy on the personal lives of people. Senior NCP leader and former state minister Jitendra Awhad tweeted, “What’s this rubbish of committee to check inter-caste/religion marriages? Who is govt to spy on who marries whom? In liberal Maharashtra this a retrograde, nauseating step. Which way is progressive Maharashtra heading towards. Stay away from people’s private life.”
A Government Resolution (GR) issued on Tuesday by the state’s Women and Child Development Department said the “Intercaste/Interfaith marriage-family coordination committee (state level)” will be headed by Lodha.
They will hold regular meetings with district officials and collect information on registered and unregistered inter-faith and inter-caste marriages including elopement, it said.
The committee will monitor district-level initiatives for women involved in such marriages who may be estranged from their families, so that assistance can be provided if necessary, it said. Women and their families can also use the platform to avail of counselling and resolve issues.
ALSO READ | Anti-conversion law: MP govt to move SC against interim relief from action given to interfaith couples
State minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha who is heading the committee head claimed it was “an attempt to ensure that the Shraddha Walkar case does not happen again.”
“The fact that Walkar’s family was not aware that she had died six months ago is scary… the committee is being set up to ensure women in such marriages are not away from their families,” he said.
Walkar was murdered allegedly by her partner Aaftab Poonawala in Delhi in May this year who had strangled and cut her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in Mehrauli, before dumping them across the city over several days.
READ HERE | Anti-conversion laws, tedious Special Marriage Act hurt interfaith unions
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had recently said that his government would study laws on freedom of religion enacted by other states, but had not yet decided on introducing a similar law in the western state.
“Love jihad”, used by right-wing activists, alleges a ‘ploy’ by Muslim men to lure Hindu women into conversion through marriage.
(With PTI inputs)
MUMBAI: In a disturbing development, the Maharashtra government has set up a committee to gather information on inter-faith and inter-caste marriage couples and the maternal families of the women involved if they are estranged. The panel will have 13 members from government and non-government fields to study policies regarding related welfare schemes and laws.
The opposition Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) has condemned the “retrograde” step, stating that the Eknath Shinde government had no right to spy on the personal lives of people. Senior NCP leader and former state minister Jitendra Awhad tweeted, “What’s this rubbish of committee to check inter-caste/religion marriages? Who is govt to spy on who marries whom? In liberal Maharashtra this a retrograde, nauseating step. Which way is progressive Maharashtra heading towards. Stay away from people’s private life.”
A Government Resolution (GR) issued on Tuesday by the state’s Women and Child Development Department said the “Intercaste/Interfaith marriage-family coordination committee (state level)” will be headed by Lodha.
They will hold regular meetings with district officials and collect information on registered and unregistered inter-faith and inter-caste marriages including elopement, it said.
The committee will monitor district-level initiatives for women involved in such marriages who may be estranged from their families, so that assistance can be provided if necessary, it said. Women and their families can also use the platform to avail of counselling and resolve issues.
ALSO READ | Anti-conversion law: MP govt to move SC against interim relief from action given to interfaith couples
State minister Mangal Prabhat Lodha who is heading the committee head claimed it was “an attempt to ensure that the Shraddha Walkar case does not happen again.”
“The fact that Walkar’s family was not aware that she had died six months ago is scary… the committee is being set up to ensure women in such marriages are not away from their families,” he said.
Walkar was murdered allegedly by her partner Aaftab Poonawala in Delhi in May this year who had strangled and cut her body into 35 pieces which he kept in a 300-litre fridge for almost three weeks at his residence in Mehrauli, before dumping them across the city over several days.
READ HERE | Anti-conversion laws, tedious Special Marriage Act hurt interfaith unions
Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis had recently said that his government would study laws on freedom of religion enacted by other states, but had not yet decided on introducing a similar law in the western state.
“Love jihad”, used by right-wing activists, alleges a ‘ploy’ by Muslim men to lure Hindu women into conversion through marriage.
(With PTI inputs)
