Christian women held after Hindu group disrupts prayer meeting in India
Women were taken to a police station under state of Chhattisgarh’s anti-conversion law after Bajrang Dal extremists accused them of carrying out religious conversions.
NEW DELHI, India (MNTV) — Three Christian women were detained in India’s central Chhattisgarh state after members of a Hindu hardline group disrupted a prayer gathering at a private home and accused participants of illegally converting people to Christianity.
The Aug. 22 incident in state capital Raipur came to light after video surfaced showing Christian community members gathered at a police station following the women’s detention, according to UCA News.
Community members said about 20 to 25 members of the Bajrang Dal arrived at the private residence accompanied by police officers, disrupted the prayer meeting and accused the women of carrying out religious conversions. Police subsequently took three women to the station.
A police official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said they were detained under Chhattisgarh’s anti-conversion law and that an investigation had been launched.
It was not immediately clear what specific allegations were made against each woman or what evidence authorities had found to support the conversion accusations. Police have not publicly released details of the case.
The Bajrang Dal, a Hindu hardline organization that frequently campaigns against Christian missionary activity, has not publicly commented on the allegations surrounding the incident.
Videos that emerged following the detentions showed Christian community members gathering at the police station and arguing with officers as they sought information about the women.
Christians present at the station also accused police of intimidating supporters and photographing people who had arrived to help the detained women.
Freddy Joseph, a Christian evangelist and preacher, criticized the police action and said Christians were increasingly being subjected to harassment and violence over allegations of religious conversion.
A Christian rights activist in Chhattisgarh said the state’s anti-conversion legislation had become a tool for Hindu groups to target Christian gatherings.
“This law is nothing but a lethal weapon in the hands of those fanatic Hindu organizations who barge into people’s homes and harass them for following the Christian faith,” the activist said.
The incident is the latest in a series of confrontations over Christian prayer meetings in India in which Hindu groups have accused pastors or worshippers of using religious gatherings to convert Hindus.
Several Indian states, including Chhattisgarh, have laws restricting religious conversion through force, fraud or inducement. Christian groups say the laws are increasingly invoked following complaints from Hindu nationalist organizations to disrupt ordinary worship and harass minority communities, even when no evidence of coercive conversion has been established.
Hindu organizations, meanwhile, argue that the laws are necessary to prevent fraudulent or coercive conversions.
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