Indian pastor, seven others arrested on conversion charges
Christians gather for a Good Friday service at the Assumption Church in East Delhi on March 30, 2018. (Photo: Bijay Kumar Minj/UCA News)
Eight people including a pastor and his wife were arrested by police for violating the anti-conversion law in two separate incidents reported from a northern Indian state.
Pastor Ibrahim Thomas, his wife Reewa, and Babita Thakur were arrested on May 14 in Uttar Pradesh’s Ghaziabad city for allegedly trying to convert women inside a beauty parlor.
The complaint was filed by Sunita Arora, a local leader of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, alleging she was called to a beauty parlor near her home in Khoda colony and asked to convert to Christianity, according to media reports.
The beauty parlor is run by Thakur and Thomas and his wife were preaching to a group of women assembled there, Arora claimed while adding that she left immediately and called her supporters before deciding to file a complaint with the police.
Minakshi Singh, a Christian activist told UCA News on May 17 that the three Christians were arrested on Sunday and sent to the Dasana jail.
“We are working with our legal team to arrange a bail in court and get them released from jail,” added Singh, who is the general secretary of Unity in Compassion, a charity organization based in Uttar Pradesh.
She also referred to the local police’s claim to have in their possession a video of Thomas preaching to a group of women inside a house.
As reported by The Times of India, Vivek Yadav, deputy commissioner of police in Ghaziabad, said that they “are investigating whether the accused are associated with any group or not.”
A first information report was registered against the three under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021, the police said.
Meanwhile, in yet another incident reported from the state’s Kaushambi district on May 14, five people were arrested under the anti-conversion law.
Local police said Mahraj Saroj, Umakant Maurya, Mahendra Kumar, Ved Prakash and their accomplice, who was not named by the police, were allegedly luring poor tribal people to Christianity by holding a healing prayer service in Sainta village.
Media reports quoted a senior police officer saying the group of Christians told people that they would be cured of diseases if they adopted Christianity and held their meetings in various villages.
Pastor Pasty David from Uttar Pradesh said that all the arrested are in jail now and legal efforts were on to get them released.
The state’s stringent anti-conversion law prohibits any attempt to convert “by use or practice of misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or by any fraudulent means.”
By UCA News reporter
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