This is the third 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
New Delhi: It was meant to be a prayer service to celebrate a child’s birthday, but ended up landing three Dalit men in jail under a special law against religious conversion in Uttar Pradesh.
One of them was Durga Prasad*, 41. A resident of Amroha in western UP, Prasad and two other men were arrested in February 2023 after a member of the controversial extremist Hindutva outfit Bajrang Dal lodged a complaint against them for converting poor Hindus to Christianity using allurement. It was in Amroha that the UP recorded its first conviction in 2022 under the new law against unlawful conversions introduced in 2020. A Muslim man was sentenced to five years in jail for trying to marry a Hindu girl under a false identity by concealing his religion.
Bajrang Dal activist Kushal Chaudhary’s complaint against Prasad and two others was built on general and vague accusations. But it was enough for the police to lodge a First Information Report against them. The three men, all of whom belong to the Jatav Dalit community, were eventually cleared of all charges – but only after a 21-month-long uncertain legal battle. Last year, courts in Amroha trashed the allegations of unlawful religious conversion against them and acquitted them in a connected case of allegedly threatening Chaudhary.
A disrupted birthday party
The day was February 20, 2023. Prasad was visiting the house of a local resident, Azad Singh, for a prayer service, along with his associate Shiv Kumar. “We were in the village to attend a birthday party at Azad Kumar’s house. We were just leaving after eating when all of it happened,” Prasad told The Wire.
Right-wing activists associated with the Bajrang Dal stormed the event and created a ruckus. They accused Prasad and Kumar of trying to lure poor people in the neighbourhood to convert to Christianity by propagating misleading ideas and offering them allurements. An FIR was lodged on Chaudhary’s complaint. The three men were booked under Sections 3 and 5 (1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.