Coimbatore: Freedom of religion is not freedom for conversion, but practicing, propagating and protecting it, VHP international president Ashok Singhal said on October 7.

Congratulating Tamil Nadu Chief Minister Jayalalithaa for bringing in a new ordinance on religious conversions, Singhal said, "if the freedom of religion is used for conversion, it must be curbed by a befitting Law".

Talking to reporters, Singhal said nobody can have a separate homeland for the various religious sects in India and the same was true with Islam and Christianity.

Stating that the "bold" step taken by Jayalalithaa should be an eye opener to other states, Singhal said freedom of religion was not freedom to convert people of the country.

Despite having 150 important sects in the Hindu religion and people taking to worship of their choice, we had never heard of any conversions, he claimed, adding the same shall be adhered to by religions "which had come from foreign land".

"Allurement, force and threat to life to convert other people is no religion, but it is politics," Singhal said, adding by these methods "they increase their number and get a government of the particular religion".

Citing the example of East Timor, Singhal said, "they increased their number", dissociated from the country (Indonesia) and became a state.

"We have sufficiently suffered because of giving away Pakistan to a particular religious sect and now the country is in no mood to give away an inch of land as homeland for religious sects," Singhal said.

PTI