All state universities and higher educational institutions in Bharatiya Janata Party ruled Uttar Pradesh have been directed to set up “Dharmantaran Roktham cells” or anti-conversion cells, the Hindustan Times reported on Friday.

A letter from Governor Anandiben Patel’s secretariat dated May 28 instructed vice chancellors, directors of all state universities and institutes, and higher educational institutions, including medical institutes, to strengthen counselling services, monitoring systems, student welfare mechanisms, reporting protocols and establish safeguards, the newspaper reported.

The directions came after allegations that students are being influenced through inducement, psychological pressure or other unethical means into religious conversion, the letter added.

The governor’s directive follows a series of investigations linked to Lucknow’s King George Medical University in the last two years in connection with claims of a “love jihad” network being run from its campus.

Love jihad is a Hindutva conspiracy theory that Muslim men trick Hindu women into romantic relationships with the aim of converting them to Islam. The Union home ministry has told Parliament that Indian law has no provision defining such a term.

While the BJP has supported the directive, calling it necessary to protect students from coercion, the Opposition Samajwadi Party has accused the government of trying to polarise society.

“If the governor is so concerned, she should first start forming an anti-BJP cell as charity begins at home,” Samajwadi Party spokesperson Abbas Haider was quoted as saying by the Hindustan Times. “Both the BJP and RSS are creating communal divisions.”

Haider urged the government to improve medical education infrastructure in the state instead.

Uttar Pradesh has one of the strictest anti-conversion laws in the country. In July 2024, the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly passed the 2024 Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Amendment Bill. An update to the 2021 anti-conversion law, the new Act allows anyone to file a complaint, makes punishments for offences more stringent and imposes stricter conditions for securing bail.

Edited by Neerad Pandharipande.