What happens when someone says making a joke about Adam and Eve and Steve is sacrilege against the Bible?

What happens when someone says that disregarding the obscure passage in the Quran that permits men to strike their wives, is sacrilege against it?

What happens when someone says calling the Bhagvad Gita a boring read, is sacrilege against the Gita?

What happens when someone says that not covering the Guru Granth Sahib after ardas in a Gurudwara, is sacrilege against it?

After all, you just have to hurt the feelings of some happily amorphous “people”, right? Even the existing provisions (Sections 295 and 295A), problematic though they are, make more effort at delineating who needs to be insulted to attract the offence.

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Dear Captain Amarinder Singh, What in God’s Name Are You Doing?

Unnecessary, irrational, unconstitutional – everything wrong with the Punjab Cabinet’s new sacrilege bill.

Vakasha Sachdev

Published: 24 Aug 2018, 2:18 PM IST

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To: The Hon’ble Chief Minister of Punjab

CC: Mr Rahul Gandhi, AICC President

Sub: New Law on Sacrilege of Religious Texts

Respected sir,

I hope this letter finds you in good health and spirits. Unfortunately, I am writing to you about something less than pleasant, and so that’s all the pleasantries we have time for.

With all due respect, sir, I have to ask – what on earth were you thinking when your Cabinet decided to introduce a new blasphemy offence in Punjab? What possible reason could there be for “sacrilege of all religious texts” to be punishable with life imprisonment?

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Dear Captain Amarinder Singh, What in God’s Name Are You Doing?

Unnecessary, irrational, unconstitutional – everything wrong with the Punjab Cabinet’s new sacrilege bill.

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Topics: Constitution Supreme Court IPC