By Omar Rashid
This is the seventh article in a series of reports on people who won their legal battles after being falsely charged under the anti-conversion laws brought in by BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6
New Delhi: Little did the two lovers know that on the day they planned to marry, they would be end up behind bars. Pawan* (34) and Chanda* (27) believed, perhaps naively, that only mischief-mongers go to jail. “I was quite saddened. I always thought jail was for those who do bad things and commit crime. But we didn’t commit any crime,” Pawan said.
Residents of Simdega in Jharkhand, located near the border with Odisha, Pawan, Chanda, Chanda’s sister-in-law Rajni and local pastor Jagan, who was to officiate their wedding, were booked under the state’s anti-conversion law in the summer of 2018. They spent 42 days in jail before being released on bail.
The complainant in the case was Chanda’s father, Hemant, who was disgruntled with the idea that Chanda and Pawan planned to marry according to Christian customs. Both Chanda and Pawan belong to the Santhal tribe, which follow the animistic Sarna religion. Hemant, a follower of Sarna, wanted his daughter to marry according to Sarna rituals. Although he objected to their wedding, he did not intend to punish his daughter for it, not through the anti-conversion law. Hemant, who is illiterate and often intoxicated, was manipulated into lodging a police complaint against his own daughter and would-be son-in-law by village council members linked to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party. He later realised his folly and tried to address his guilt by changing his statement in court. But the process took six long years before Pawan, Chanda, Rajni and pastor Jagan were acquitted of the charges.
It all started in May 2018, when Pawan and Chanda decided to get married after a period of courtship. Since they both had given up their Sarna identities and followed the path of Jesus Christ, they decided to marry as per Christian traditions. The news of their scheduled wedding, fixed on May 30, 2018, caused a sensation in their village, mostly inhabited by Sarna followers of the Santhal tribe. The villagers held two public meetings, where Pawan and Chanda’s plans were scrutinised. They were bent on preventing a Christian wedding in their village. “They heard that our wedding was fixed but were unhappy that we had not informed them how we would be getting married. What rituals we would follow. When we informed them we would marry as per the Christian way, they objected to it and threatened us, asking us to marry as per the Sarna tradition,” said Chanda.
A First Information Report was lodged at the Bolba police station against Pawan, Chanda, Rajni and Jagan, accusing them of assaulting Chanda’s father Hemant and trying to force him to convert to Christianity. It would be later revealed that Narendra Manjhi, the president of the village’s Sarna religious council, drafted the police complaint. Hemant, allegedly unaware of its content, signed it. “They drafted a statement and made him sign it,” said Chanda, adding that Hemant did not know he was the sole informant in the case.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.