ARUNACHAL PRADESH: CM ASSURES STATE GOVERNMENT TO CONSULT STAKEHOLDERS ON APFR ACT

14 July 2018:

“This is a people’s government and every decision taken will be in consultation with the people”: CM

Arunachal Chief Minister Pema Khandu on Friday assured that the State Government would consider views and suggestions of every stakeholder through wider consultations with regard to the Arunachal Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 1978.

In the first of his consultations with the Indigenous Faith and Cultural Society of Arunachal Pradesh (IFCAP), the chief minister reiterated that the state government would stick to its secular principles and therefore consult with every stakeholder before taking any decision on the Act.

The Chief Minister also observed that the said Act needed to be studied in detail to understand its implications, which, according to him, does not discriminate any religion at the outset but safeguards the secular spirits of the Indian Constitution.

The CM’s statement comes barely two weeks after he had announced that the state government would repeal the Act.

Meanwhile, the IFCAP said that “any entity who opposes the APFR Act and demands its repeal are the one who indulges in forceful conversions through fraudulent and coercive means by way of inducement, intimidation and false methodology”.