UP: 25-year-old Meerut tutor held for kidnapping, bid to convert teenaged girl

The police picked up the teenager while she was on the way to catch a bus for Delhi on Tuesday after receiving a phone call from the tutor to meet her there. He had allegedly threatened to kill her younger brother

The Uttar Pradesh Police have arrested a 25-year-old tutor from Meerut for allegedly trying to convert a teenager for marriage.

Representational Image.

Sanjay Verma, the in-charge of Meerut’s Nauchandi police station, said that a case of kidnapping was registered against the tutor on the complaint of the teenager’s family. He added he was also booked under the state’s anti-conversion ordinance on the basis of the teenager’s statement.

Verma said that they picked up the teenager while she was on the way to catch a bus for Delhi on Tuesday after receiving a phone call from the tutor. He added the tutor had asked her to come to Delhi by bus and that he would meet her there after allegedly threatening to kill her younger brother.

Members of Bajrang Dal and other Hindu organisations rushed to the police station and demanded the arrest of the tutor.

Police handed over a teenager to her family after her statement was recorded in front of a magistrate on Thursday when the tutor was also arrested.

Uttar Pradesh is among the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled states that have criminalised religious conversion, including by way of interfaith marriages. The legislation followed a campaign against interfaith marriages.