Maharashtra's conversion law starts Friday. Mumbai pastors are already collecting Aadhaar.

The Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act, 2026, takes effect on 28 August.

The Home Department notified that date on 17 August. The Fadnavis government passed the law in the March Budget Session. President Droupadi Murmu assented. From Friday, a conversion by force, fraud, coercion, allurement or a marriage-linked inducement is a cognisable, non-bailable offence. Jail can run to seven years. Anyone who wants to convert voluntarily must give 60 days' notice to a competent authority. After the ceremony, a declaration is due within 21 days. Miss that, and the conversion can be treated as void. Parents, siblings and some other relatives can complain. The person who conducted or helped the conversion has to show it was lawful.

The shadow is already in church. Indian Express reported that pastors in Vasai, Virar, Mira-Bhayandar, Thane, Mumbai and Palghar are handing worshippers a self-declaration. It says they attended of their own choice, with no pressure, inducement, temptation, lure or threat. It asks for a passport photograph and an Aadhaar or PAN number. At New Hope Church in Virar the forms went out during a Sunday service, as insurance, after disrupted prayers and FIRs.

Pune police did not wait. Times of India found the Act cited in FIRs on 5 and 9 August, against a man from Uttar Pradesh and a UK national, before the gazette date. Senior officers later said those provisions would come off.

This is a paperwork story that will become a police story.

Sunday attendance is not conversion. The form treats it as if it might be read that way. Collecting Aadhaar at the door is a record the congregation now keeps on itself. The state asked for 60 days' notice. The churches answered with a waiver.

Pune already showed how a law can be invoked before it exists. Friday makes that harder to walk back.

Watch the first Friday services after 28 August, and whether a relative's complaint, not a convert's, is the first FIR under the Act that actually applies.