Four people have been arrested from Barabanki’s Asauri village on Wednesday over alleged involvement in religious conversion.
“Following a tip-off from a villager, the police raided the house of Rajendra and found that conversion prayer was being held. Mahindra, Badal, Shyamu and Rajendra were arrested for attempting to convert villagers by deception and enticing them to Christianity,” said Santosh Singh, station officer of Kothi police station.
“A woman was also present at the spot but wasn’t arrested as her job was to only offer prayers. Two religious books were also seized from the spot. All four were charged with organizing a prayer meeting under the pretext of giving medical treatment and increasing religious conversion.”
The complaint was filed by Jitendra Pratap Singh. In his FIR to the police, he alleged, “On Wednesday villagers informed the police that some people were conducting a prayer meeting at Rajendra Prasad’s house the group claimed to treat cancer kidney stones and epilepsy through exorcism and asked people to pray to Jesus while offering water that was blessed with a prayer. The villages also accused them of attempting religious conversion.”
The accused said that the camp was set up after requests from Rajendra’s mother-in-law Medharani and she possessed religious books including the Bible.
This story was originally published in theobserverpost.com.