They accused a group of faithful who met in a private house of “disturbing public order”. The Archbishop of Raipur, Mons. Thakur, declared to : “They are sowing tension when they should be protecting the population.” Meanwhile, the local government of Tamil Nadu spoke out against the anger of Hindu nationalists over the conversion: “The Constitution guarantees every citizen the right to spread his faith.”
Raipur () – In the Indian state of Chhattisgarh, a group of extremists from the Bajrang Dal, a movement of Hindu nationalists, attacked a private house where a group of Christians had gathered to pray on Sunday, April 30. About fifty people were at the home of Dr. Vinay Sahu, a local dentist, when dozens of militants armed with sticks arrived, chanting Hindu cheers.
Members of the Christian community, who had barricaded themselves in the house out of fear, immediately called the police, whose police station is only 500 meters away. The agents did not appear until an hour later, and instead of acting against the assailants, they arrested the dentist and a dozen Christians who were present, accusing them of disturbing public order.
“Even the police accused us of converting people to Christianity,” said Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum. They were asked why they were praying in a private house and threatened to send them to jail. Only after we put pressure did they release them at night.”
“Since 2019 we have held moments of prayer in our house,” Dr. Sahu reported. “In 2021, the Bajrang Dal had organized a similar protest and even then they threatened us with violence if we did not stop praying. But it is our house and we have never forced “No one to attend the service. All the participants were Christians. We also did not use microphones or cause noise pollution. We do not understand the reason for these attacks.”
Archbishop Victor Henry Thakur, Archbishop of Raipur and Chairman of the Chhattisgarh Council of Catholic Bishops (CBCG), commented on the incident to : “With elections to the local Legislative Assembly scheduled for the end of the year, they are paving the way by sowing tension and suspicion in society. Right-wing extremists are accusing Christians of fabricated and unfounded conversions, and the administration is arresting and detaining innocent Christians, while those who create disturbances in public order are free. The administration has a duty to protect the population.”
All this happens while in another Indian state -Tamil Nadu- the local government declared before the Supreme Court that all citizens have the possibility to practice and spread their religion peacefully. This was the response to the request of Ashwini Upadhyay, local leader of the BJP (the Hindu nationalist party to which Prime Minister Narendra Modi also belongs), who demanded an investigation into alleged cases of conversion. “Article 25 of the Indian Constitution guarantees all citizens the right to spread their faith,” says the position presented by the Tamil Nadu government on the matter.
The executive, led by the local Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam party, said anti-conversion laws are prone to being misused against minorities: “Citizens of the country should be able to freely choose their religion and the government should not put a spoke in the wheel of their personal beliefs and privacy. The note also recalled that the previous government had passed an anti-conversion law in Tamil Nadu in 2002, but that it was repealed in 2006 “due to popular opposition.”
