By Omar Rashid
This is the sixth 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
New Delhi: “Satya pareshan ho sakta hain, lekin parajit nahi.” Truth can be troubled but not defeated.
These inspiring words, etched somewhere inside a prison in Madhya Pradesh’s Khandwa district, consoled an incarcerated Ajay Singh* and kept hope for justice alive.
“We believed that parmeshwar (the almighty) would free us from this ordeal. We were indeed worried but also hopeful that if not today, then tomorrow, truth would prevail,” he said.
Singh’s ‘truth’ was that he did not unlawfully convert a tribal Hindu man to Christianity. He was merely conducting prayers to Jesus Christ.
It took him, and two others, more than seven years to prove this in a court. Singh (30), Santosh (30) and Hukum (28) were booked under the unlawful conversion law in MP in 2017. All three men belong to the Barela tribal community.
After a protracted legal battle, which included an initial setback in the form of a conviction, the three men were in July last year acquitted by a court in Khandwa district. Around 35% of the southern MP district’s population belongs to tribal communities.
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.