‘Agra conversion politically motivated’

Many religions, including Islam are against forcible conversion: Labid Shafi

Labid Shafi, leader of the Jamaat-e-Islami Hind, on Tuesday described the religious conversion reported recently from Agra as politically motivated. “Indian constitution guarantees everyone the right to embrace any religion of his/her wish. However, forced conversion is not acceptable,” he said while addressing a press conference here.

Mr. Shafi said that Including Islam, many religions were against forcible conversion. The Union government was proposing to bring in a law to stop religious conversions. However, such a move would deprive the citizens of their right to accept or follow the religion of his/her wish. Every individual should have the right to choose any religion, he said and added “What happened in Agra was purely politically motivated.”

Political reasons

To a question, Mr. Shafi said that for political reasons, terror attacks were being seen as handiwork of the people belonging to a particular religion.

“Many major acts of crime, including world wars, have happened in the past. Whenever such instances happened, the perpetrators were not seen from any religious perspective. All religions teach peace and harmony. The meaning of Islam is also peace. Religion should not be blamed for the criminal acts of a few individuals. There are people who quote religious texts to defend their acts. By doing so, they are only distorting the meaning of religious texts and misleading others,” he said.

Lectures

With a view to clear confusion and misconceptions about Islamic religion and its religious texts, the Jamaat-e-Islami Hindu would organise a three-day programme consisting of lectures on Quran in Kannada in Hassan from December 22.

The programme would be held at the Kala Bhavan here. Distinguished scholars would speak about the religious texts between 6.45 p.m. and 8.45 p.m. on all the three days, he said.