1,687 people in Maharashtra changed religion in 4 years: RTI data

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The Right to Information (RTI) office on Thursday revealed that as many as 1,687 people opted for religious conversion in Maharashtra in the last 43 months, with 1,166 Hindus embracing other faiths, including Islam, Christianity and Buddhism.

The information was provided by the Directorate of Government Printing and Stationery (DGPS), Mumbai in response to a query filed by activist Anil Galgali.

In a statement, it said, "As per the information recorded between June 10, 2014 and January 16, 2018, around 44 per cent (749 out of the total 1,687) embraced Islam, while only 21 per cent people converted to Hinduism. Of the 1,166 Hindu people, 664 converted to Islam, followed by Buddhism (258), Christianity (138), Jainism (88), Sikhism (11) and other religions (seven)."

Total 263 Muslims converted their religion, of which 228 people (87 per cent) chose to become Hindu, while 12 embraced Buddhism, 21 Christianity and two converted to Jainism.

"These are the numbers recorded by the DGPS. It only maintains the record of the people who report to it, otherwise the actual number of people, who change their religion is quite high," the statement added.