By Omar Rashid
New Delhi: “Propagating religion and promoting good things about religion is not a crime,” a local court in Uttar Pradesh’s Sonbhadra district noted on December 14 as it granted bail to six persons, including two south Indian-origin social workers, accused of converting lower caste and marginalised members of the Hindu community to Christianity through allurements and inducements.
In the last two weeks, police in eastern UP have arrested at least four persons hailing from south Indian states on charges of allegedly trying to convert backward caste and tribal Hindus through allurements of providing them a better life and free education and health facilities.
In the first case, lodged in the backward Sonbhadra district, on the complaint of an office-bearer of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, police booked 42 persons under Sections 3 and 5 (1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. Nine persons, including a person from Andhra Pradesh and one from Tamil Nadu, were arrested. In another case, police in Sant Kabir Nagar on December 11 arrested a couple originally from Kerala on charges of allegedly alluring a woman from the backward caste Nishad community to convert and for insulting Hindu deities.
“They were creating a situation of caste conflict,” Narsingh Tripathi, the VHP activist who lodged the police complaint in Sonbhadra, told The Wire on what motivated him to file the FIR.
On November 29, an FIR was registered at Chopan police station in Sonbhadra on Tripathi’s complaint, which alleged that the accused persons were trying to convert “bholi bhali” (naïve) and deprived people living in the tribal dominated areas. They were also afflicted by superstition, Tripathi claimed.
The FIR named 42 persons including Christian social workers Jai Prabhu, Chheka Emmanuel and K Sojanya. Prabhu, 40, a teacher, hails from Chennai and has been living in Sonbhadra since 2011 after he came to a local church. Chekka Emmanuel and his wife K. Sojanya hail from Vijaywada in Andhra Pradesh but have been residents of Sonbhadra for the past few years.
Those named in the FIR include pastors Sanjay John, Chotu Ranjan, Sohanram and Sant Lal Gond, Prakash HL Marandi (a teacher of St. Joseph’s school Shaktinagar, a co-educational English Medium School, established in 1978, and managed by the Roman Catholic Diocese of Allahabad Education Society), sanitation workers Durgawati Devi and Parmanand, and priest Fr. Paras.
Most of the accused belong to the Dalit, OBC and tribal communities.
Tripathi accused them of helping poor tribals financially, and distributing money and other essential items among them in order to get them converted to Christianity.
They misled the “poor and illiterate people” by providing their children free education, free school uniforms, free books and do jhaad–phoonk (a style of exorcism) to cure them of ailments at changai sabhas held every Sunday, he alleged in the FIR, a copy of which is with The Wire. Tripathi also alleged that the accused provided free treatment in Christian hospitals and while doing so gave the public from the tribal areas allurements to make them believe that “Jesus Christ is the only Eshwar (lord)” and “Christian faith is the only way to kalyan (welfare).”
Through such allurements and promises, he said, “they (the people) are psychologically mesmerized towards conversion.”
Sonbhadra police ASP (headquarters) Kalu Singh said the natives of Southern states had been residing in Sonbhadra for the last few years. Nine out of the 42 had been arrested so far, he said.
Police claimed they had recovered over 100 religious items used by the accused to convert people. These included 10 copies of the Bible, 13 holy scriptures, 307 prayer pamphlets, five talking Bible audio tapes, a convention song CD and other prayer books, including one named ‘UP ke liye prarthana pushtak’ (A book of prayer for UP).
While the FIR was lodged in Chopan area, the accused were spread across the district, which is known to be mineral-rich and shares a border with Jharkhand, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here .