11 Indian Christians released from jail

A court in a northern Indian state has released 11 Protestant Christians who spent a week in jail after their arrest under the draconian anti-conversion law.

A local court in Bahraich district in northern Uttar Pradesh state granted bail to Pastor Babu Ram and 10 others, who were released on July 17.

“We are happy that our brothers are released from jail,” said Dinanath Jaiswal, a social worker who helped the Christians in their legal fight.

Police arrested them on July 9 during a Sunday service following complaints from activists of the hardline Hindu group, Bajrang Dal (lord Hanuman’s army).

The activists forced their way into the prayer hall and accused the pastor and others of being involved in religious conversion, which is a crime under the state’s anti-conversion law.

The activists called the police who took the pastor and those attending the Sunday prayer service into their custody and produced them before a court.

“Thirteen Christian women were also taken into custody by the police. But a local court granted them bail,” Jaiswal told UCA News on July 18.

Police charged them with illegal assembly, conspiracy, and criminal intimidation.

“It is unfortunate that police keep registering totally fake cases against Christians who are merely attending the Sunday prayer services,” Jaiswal said.

He said that life has become miserable for Christians in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous among Indian states, which is ruled by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

The state government enacted a sweeping anti-conversion law in 2020, and several Christians including pastors are languishing in different jails since then.

Church leaders have been accusing police of siding with hardline Hindu groups and registering false cases against Christians under the anti-conversion law.

As per law, the police are supposed to register a case of illegal conversion only if the complaint comes from the victim or a close relative, or a guardian.

“Police do not follow the law and so Christians are forced to mobilize resources to fight the totally false cases in courts,” he lamented.

Uttar Pradesh tops the list among Indian states in prosecuting Christians.

The state recorded 155 incidents of violence against Christians in the past six months, said New Delhi-based United Christian Forum (UCF), which tracks violence against Christians across the country.

uring the same period, 400 incidents of persecution against Christians were recorded in the country, said UCF.

Its report said that in most incidents, police fail to file cases against their perpetrators.

Christians make up a mere 0.18 percent of Uttar Pradesh’s more than 20 million people, mostly Hindus.

The article is published on www.ucanews.com/