By Omar Rashid
This is the first 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.
New Delhi: June 25, 2023 began as any other Sunday morning for 35-year-old Sonu Saroj. His family members, distant relatives and people from neighbouring villages had congregated in an open space near a brick shed he had built behind his house in Kodra village, Rae Bareli, Uttar Pradesh to participate in a prayer meeting dedicated to Jesus Christ. A vehicle mechanic from the Dalit community, Saroj was known to host prayer meetings in a makeshift ramshackle prayer centre – Jeevan Dwar Prarthna Bhavan – which he had registered in the form of a society. But as the day went on, things were far from normal.
The event was scheduled to start at 11 am; around 250 voluntary participants, many of them women, had already gathered near Saroj’s shed half an hour before that. Others were still trickling in when a mob of 10-15 Hindutva men linked to the extremist group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and its youth wing Bajrang Dal barged into Saroj’s premises and created a ruckus. “They were charged and carrying lathis and dandas (batons). They did not offer any warning, they just started hitting us all,” says Saroj.
His nephew was assaulted by three men. And when Saroj’s wife Prabha (name changed), who was bathing at that time, rushed out to intervene, the miscreants, some of whom wore saffron scarves, allegedly manhandled her. One of them struck her head hard with a lathi, causing her serious injury. The mob accused Saroj of holding unauthorised prayer meetings in a bid to convert local Hindus to Christianity.
After a few minutes, police arrived and took her to a hospital, where she received treatment. Instead of taking action against the aggressors, the police used Section 151 of the Code of Criminal Procedure and sent Saroj to jail. The section gives the police the power to arrest a person without a warrant or a magistrate’s order if they believe he or she is planning to commit a cognisable crime. Later in the day, an FIR was lodged against Saroj at the Salon police station under Sections 3 and 5 (1) of the stringent anti-conversion law conceived by the Yogi Adityanath government in 2020 in the form of an ordinance, The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021. The case was registered on the complaint of Sanjay Kumar Tiwari, a member of the VHP. The FIR accused Saroj of conducting “changai sabhas” or special healing meetings to unlawfully convert poor Hindus to Christianity using allurement and deception.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.