Christians harassed in Madhya Pradesh, pastor assaulted

Bhopal – In three separate incidents, Christians were harassed in Madhya Pradesh with anti–Christian violence mounting in the state.

In a story carried by Compass, local police of Jabalpur, on May 1, interrupted a class for poor labourers' children that was being conducted by social worker, Sunil Kumar Rao, and searched the premises for evidence that would incriminate him as someone they could charge with "forcible" conversion.

Sunil Kumar Rao, a social worker for the Child Labour Project in the Gwarighat and Jilhari villages of Jabalpur, told Compass that police, unable to find the "evidence" became annoyed and "they used abusive language and threatened to strip–search" him.

"They searched my personal bag for other articles and warned me of dire consequences and said my intention was to convert these poor children of laborers to Christianity," Rao recalled.

Rao was forced to accompany the police to the Gwarighat police station and was detained there till a group of activists belonging to the Hindu right wing outfit, Bajrang Dal, arrived on the scene.

"Some Bajrang Dal people and some media persons reached there, and in front of them the police people took out some articles from my bag (that was seized by them) that were not found in the first check," he said. "I do not know from where those things came."

Rao recalled that he was manhandled by Bajrang Dal supporters and some officers in the police station under the instructions of the Sub–Inspector (SI) Nalinkant Bhadoria.

The police also noted down complaints from two "witnesses," Puranlal Ahirwar and Dharmendra Ahirwar, who alleged that Rao was forcibly converting people and luring them with money and other attractive offers. "I do not know Puranlal Ahirwar or have any relation with him, and have neither supplied or distributed any articles or pamphlets to him," Rao maintained.

After being given a warning and recording his statements, Rao was finally set free on bail.

According to Father Anand Muttungal, spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops Conference (CBCI), Madhya Pradesh, there is a "nexus" between the Jabalpur district administration and the local Hindu fundamentalists to harass members of the Christian community.

"This is ridiculous – there is a nexus between the police and the fundamentalists," he said. "They even plant evidence like Bibles and other Christian literature and accuse Christians of propagating faith and conversion through allurement."

In another incident, on May 2, members of the Bajrang Dal reportedly slapped a 60–year–old pastor for distributing Christian literature near the town railway station.

An Independent Pentecostal church leader identified only as Pastor Soni was distributing tracts with gospel passages printed on them when the Hindu extremists confronted him and seized his literature. The Hindu activists also manhandled him and started slapping him, injured his lip and mouth.

The inspector in–charge of the local police station, Akhil Verma, instead of arresting those who assaulted the pastor, filed a First Information Report (FIR) that Pastor Soni was offering money to people to become Christians.

On a written complaint from Pradeep Kumar of the Hindu extremist Dharma Jagaran Sena, Pastor Soni was arrested by the Jabalpur Railway Police and charged under Section 4 of the Madhya Pradesh Religious Freedom Act of 1968, which prohibits "conversion by the use of force or inducement or by fraudulent means."

Indira Ayengar, president of the Madhya Pradesh Christian Association and member of the Madhya Pradesh State Minorities Commission, told Compass that the arrest was beyond the purview of the railway police.

"They had absolutely no evidence that he was offering money as an allurement," she said. "The authorities only want to satisfy the demands of these fundamentalist forces and harass the Christians with false witnesses."

Pastor Soni was later freed on bail.

Meanwhile, Ayengar has filed a complaint with the state's chief secretary noting that laws against distributing religious messages contradict Article 25(1) of the Indian Constitution, which guarantees the right to propagate religion.

"The freedom of exercising/propagating one's religion has a crystal clear mention," she wrote.

Ayengar also explained to Compass that the word "allurement" is vague and unspecified and subject to misuse.

"The law based on this word is vague and relative term, and thus giving leeway to abuse of the law," she said. "Pastor Soni's distribution of religious literature is now a crime of 'allurement.'"

In another incident, a young Christian man and a Hindu woman were attacked by supporters of the Bajrang Dal, the Dharma Raksha Samiti and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council) for attempting to procure a marriage licence.

In reports obtained by Compass, Robin Das, a member of the Our Lady's Church at Dhana Kamaria, and a tribal Hindu girl known as Deepmala were severely beaten when the local extremists found that she would become a Christian.

"The Christian boy was mercilessly thrashed and the tribal girl was slapped and her hair was pulled in the Collectorate itself," Compass quoted Fr. Muttungal as saying. "She was publicly belittled, and many derogatory and insinuating remarks were passed by the police. Her only crime was she wanted to marry a Christian boy."

"The negligent attitude of the administration, based on the dictates of the ruling party and fundamentalist groups, is the main cause of the rise in atrocities against Christians in the state," Ayengar wrote in a letter to the chief secretary of Madhya Pradesh expressing her concerns over the rise in anti–Christian violence in the state.

Crimes and atrocities against Christians have risen 56 percent in the first quarter of this year, as compared within the same period in 2005.

According to news sources, encouraged by police inaction, Hindu extremist groups such as the Bajrang Dal, Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Dharma Sena, have repeatedly torn up posters of Jesus Christ, publicly insulted Christian scriptures, vandalized Christian property and physically threatened Christians.