Hyderabad, April 2 -- The Maharashtra Assembly passed a sweeping anti-conversion law on March 16, criminalising religious conversions deemed to involve a "promise of marriage" and handing police the power to act against interfaith couples on their own initiative. This was not a knee-jerk reaction. It was a culmination of a three-year campaign by Hindutva groups and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) MLAs that combined ground-level pressure, hate rallies and a deliberate deception of law enforcement, according to an investigation by Article 14.

Among those celebrating the law's passage is Omprakash Yadav, 40, a Bajrang Dal activist and school teacher from Ghatkopar in eastern Mumbai, who, for the last three years, has spent his afternoons ...