PATNA, Feb. 28 -- The Bihar assembly on Friday witnessed noisy scenes over the demand by the ruling party MLAs to bring a strict anti-conversion law in the state on the lines of other states to prohibit forced religious conversions and forced inter-faith marriages. Following this, Assembly Speaker Prem Kumar gave a ruling that the state government would review anti-conversion laws of other states and "if required, would implement it in the state as well". "The Bihar government will certainly review anti-conversion laws of other states that prohibit forced religious conversion and forced inter-faith marriage and if required, the same law will be implemented in this state as well," the Speaker said. The issue came up during a call attention motion brought by Birendra Kumar, a BJP MLA, who stressed that several states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand , Gujarat and other states have already passed laws to prevent unlawful religious conversion. He demanded a similiar law to be enacted in Bihar so that religious conversions through child marriage, allurement and forced conversions could be checked. However, the state government in its reply to the motion informed the House that there is no proposal to bring an anti-conversion law in the state. "We have no proposal to bring any law to check or prohibit religious conversion. No such proposal is under consideration," said Arun Shankar Prasad, art and culture and tourism minister In his motion, Kumar claimed that there has been substantial increase in population of Muslims and Christians in the state ostensibly due to coversions through inter-faith marriage, child marriage, allurement with bordering districts of Bihar also witnessing high growth of Muslim population. "It's a fact that interfaith marriages are being used as a medium for religious conversion in several districts of Bihar. An abnormal increase in Muslim population has been observed in several districts due to religious conversion. Forced interfaith marriages are taking place in almost every district of Bihar, especially those in the Seemanchal region. Poor and weaker sections of society, particularly those belonging to SC, ST, EBC, OBC and general categories, are being targeted," the MLA claimed. The MLA further claimed in his motion that the number of churches has also increased substantially over the years, with around 5,000 operational across the state at present. "The national growth rate of the Christian community is 15.52%, whereas in Bihar, it's 143.23. Therefore, the Bihar government must make law to check conversion and forced marriages as implemented in 11 states," he said. Trouble started in the House when Opposition RJD members strongly protested against the BJP MLA's move to bring a call attention motion on such a topic even as many BJP MLAs made a strong pitch to bring a legislation to prohibit religious conversion in the state. Jibesh Kumar, Sanjay Kumar Singh, Anil Singh and Mithilesh Tiwary -- all from the BJP -- argued that a strong anti-conversion law in Bihar was necessary claiming that there are instances where girls have got converted to other religion by way of marriage in the name of love. They also claimed that such incidents were happening across the state especially in bordering districts. "When in our country, one cannot change one's caste, how can one change their religion? Besides, those who get converted also take advantage of reservation. This is not fair," said Jibesh Kumar. Another BJP MLA, Mithilesh Tiwary, said, "Whoever, with the intent to convert, puts any person in fear of his life or property, assaults or uses force or marries or promises to marry or induces or conspires for the same, or traffics a minor, a woman or a person by enticing them or otherwise selling them, or abets, attempts or conspires in this behalf, must be punished with rigorous imprisonment. Bihar needs this law as forced religious conversion is taking place in several districts in the state." However, RJD MLA and former minister Alok Mehta vehemently opposed the ruling party members and said that the issue was being unnecessarily being raised when the state government already had clarified that there is no such proposal to bring an anti-conversion law. Amid the din, the Speaker pacified the members stating that he has given a ruling that the state government would review the anti-conversion laws and take further appropriate measures. "The government is concerned over the issue raised by the MLAs... Appropriate steps will be taken by the government to handle the situation," the Speaker said. Later talking to the reporters, RJD MLA Mehta said that the Constitution of India permits every citizen to follow any religion as per his/her choice and there is no need for a new anti-conversion law in the state. "The state government has already clarified that there is no proposal to bring any law to prohibit religious conversion. The BJP and NDA members were raising it unnecessarily. We are always ready for a debate on this issue," Mehta said....