News has emerged that Muslims from Afghanistan and the Rohingyas are trying to take advantage and avail the benefits of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) by opting to convert to Christianity, the Economic Times reported.
Security agencies have alerted the government of this new development. 25 cases of Muslims from Afghanistan converting to Christianity in order to take advantage of CAA have been flagged by the agencies.
Rohingya Muslims from Myanmar are also claiming their country of origin to be Bangladesh and converting to Christianity to avail the CAA provision.
Officials said the CAA can be exploited by those who are either rejected for asylum by UNHCR or are refugee Muslims who came to India before the cut-off date, the Economic Times reported.
The CAA which became law on January 10, 2020, gives Indian Citizenship to the persecuted religious minorities belonging to six non-Muslim communities, namely Hindus, Sikhs, Buddhists, Jains, Parsis and Christians from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan.
Religious minorities in Islamic states of Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh face persecution on a daily basis owing to their religion. Houses are attacked, girls are abducted and forcibly converted and then married off to Muslim men.
Recently the Haqqani network which acts as a paramilitary Islamists force for the Pakistani army attacked Sikhs in Kabul and 25 people lost there lives.
Also, as the CAA is only applicable for persecuted minorities from Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan.
According to the chief of an Afghan church in Delhi, Adib Ahmed Maxwell, the number of Afghan Muslims willing to convert to Christianity following the passage of the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) has increased. Also, there is a looming threat of the Taliban taking over Afganistan in the future as the Americans have signed a peace deal with them ending nearly two-decade military presence.
Maxwell himself is said to have come to India at the age of 21. His parents follow Sunni Islam and live near Kabul in Afghanistan. “Most Afghans apply for asylum under the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR),” he said.
It is said that many of them are converting to Christianity as it makes their migration to Canada and other European countries easier.
Like Maxwell, Afghan pastors have welcomed the CAA but feel that the government should have some safeguards to keep a check on those converting to Christianity from Islam.
As per data, around 1.5 to 1.6 lakh Afghan Muslims currently reside in the Delhi NCR region and roughly 40,000 Rohingya Muslims all over India and also in parts of Jammu.