The police from the Bandhaura police post arrested two Christians from district Singrauli in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh under the state's anti-conversion law on Sunday last week.
The police arrested Pastor Arvind Saket, 46, a resident of village Karsuaraja in district Singrauli along with Kamlesh Saket, 48, a resident of village Kotiya and a school teacher by profession at the complaint of a local villager, on 16 March 2025.
The police arrested the duo from the church that met at Pastor Arvind Saket’s residence-cum-church in village Karsuaraja while the Sunday service was ongoing.
Speaking to Christian Today Pradeep Saket, the 28-year-old son of Arvind Saket – who led the service every Sunday along with Kamlesh Saket said, “We have been conducting church service in that location for the past 22-years, neither the police nor the villagers objected.”
The complainant is said to be a 56-year-old Surujman Basor - a local from the same village. Pradeep claimed that after the duo were arrested, he spoke to the complainant, who does not know to read and write. Basor confessed to Pradeep that he knows nothing about the complaint and that he was made to put his thumb impression on some documents which he did not know were going to be used against the Christians.
“Basor has been tricked,” said Pradeep “and used by members belonging to the Hindu right-wing groups to stop the church and arrest my father and brother Kamlesh,” he added.
The formal complaint was registered under First Information Report # 140 under the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021 – an anti-conversion law prohibiting religious conversion by force or allurement.
Pradeep, the eye-witness to the incident told Christian Today that just like every other Sunday, the church service began at 11 a.m. with prayer, followed by devotional songs. Before they could get into hearing the message, police arrived in the church and began to click pictures. They asked Arvind and Kamlesh to step out of the church. After they did, the police interrogated them asking them the reason for their gathering and meeting.
Police asked the duo to disperse the congregation and told them to take permission henceforth from the local authorities “every Sunday to conduct the gathering”.
Making it sound a routine, they were asked to present themselves at the Bandhaura police post for recording their statements “since a written complaint was submitted against them,” said the police. The recording process would only take 2-minutes, insisted the police and said that they can then come back and apply for permission to the authorities for conducting church next Sunday, narrated Pradeep.
After they were taken to the police post around 12:30 in the afternoon, they were not allowed to leave the post nor contact anybody, said Pradeep, who had followed the police vehicle along with some congregation members.
“The police would not tell them how much longer they would be detained,” said Pradeep. They were made to wait until 7 p.m. after which a case was registered against them under the Madhya Pradesh anti conversion law and they were shifted to the Manda police station. They were kept in that police station all night and presented before the court the next day.
The FIR however had a completely “false” story said Pradeep. According to the FIR, Basor alleged that whenever Kamlesh met him, he would criticise the Hindu religion and would project Christian religion as a good religion. “He would allure that I convert to Christianity,” said Basor according to the FIR. On 16th March Kamlesh gave him Rupees 2000 along with “the book that had things written about Jesus Christ”. He invited Basor to church at 9:00 AM and if he refused he threatened to drive him out of the village.
According to the FIR Basor reached the church and found several people inside the church. According to him both Arvind and Kamlesh were preaching good things about Christianity and where demeaning the Hindu religion. Basor said that the duo forced him to prays to Jesus and when he refused they got very angry at him. “They were forcing me to change my religion and I fear that if I don't comply, they will kill me,” stated the FIR.
“Basor confessed not knowing anything about the FIR, or his name in the FIR,” said Pradeep to Christian Today.
The court however sent the duo to the district jail in Pachore.
Nobody was allowed to meet the duo inside the jail for the first week of their arrest.
Kamlesh Saket, a government school teacher for almost 25-years, has been suspended from his job.
Arvind Saket has a back injury and had to undergo a surgery, but since he has been arrested, his surgery had to be postponed. He is also under medication but the police did not allow Pradeep to handover his father’s medicines to him.
“I submitted his x-ray, doctor prescription, and medicines, but the police did not allow me to give him the medicine,” said Pradeep, who was told that he will have to take permission from the court to give his father his medicines.
Pradeep was upset and called the arrest a “conspiracy”. He said that “no warning was given to us; If we were doing anything against the law, we should have been warned to not conduct church there, and if despite warnings, we continued, they could arrest us. But not like this, suddenly.”
Pradeep alleges that the “people are bias; police, media, the authorities and the local villagers are all against them,” he said.
Arvind Saket’s total congregation is of about 600 followers of Christ and at one given Sunday about 200 attend service in the Karsuaraja church.
Arvind and his wife have two sons and one daughter. Kamlesh and his wife have seven children – 2 daughters and 5 sons.
“May the truth prevail; Please ask the church to pray for us and our families,” were the final words of Arvind to his son Pradeep before the duo were shifted from the Bandhaura police post.
