NEW DELHI – Thousands of Hindus mostly of low caste are converting to Islamin India, a Government Report depicts. Same situation is prevailing inother states of the India too.

As many as 1,687 people opted for religious conversion in Maharashtra, with1,166 Hindus embracing other faiths, including Islam, Christianity andBuddhism, reply to an RTI query has revealed. As many as 44 per cent people(749 out of 1,687) chose to embrace Islam between during this period, itadded.

The information was provided by the Directorate of Government Printing andStationery (DGPS), Mumbai in response to a query filed by activist AnilGalgali. “As per the information recorded between June 10, 2014 and January16, 2018, around 44 per cent (749 out of the total 1,687) embraced Islam,while only 21 per cent people converted to Hinduism,” it said.

Of the 1,166 Hindu people, 664 converted to Islam, followed by Buddhism(258), Christianity (138), Jainism (88), Sikhism (11) and other religions(seven).

“These are the numbers recorded by the DGPS. It only maintains the recordof the people who report to it, otherwise the actual number of people, whochange their religion is quite high,” Galgali said.

When contacted, a senior official from the directorate said, “We havelaunched an online facility so that people can inform about change inreligion.

For those who are not much tech-savvy, we have 4,000 centres across thestate, where they can inform us about their conversions.”