Police detain Christian official of British-era varsity in India

The vice-chancellor of a British-era university, a Christian, has been arrested in an alleged “attempt to murder” case and remanded in judicial custody in a northern Indian state.

Rajendra Bihari Lal, the vice-chancellor of Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences in Uttar Pradesh, was arrested on Dec. 31 after a complaint by Diwakar Nath Tripathi, a local leader of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

“This case is a trap” to arrest Lal as he successfully got bail in several other cases registered against him, an associate of his, who did not want to be named, told UCA News on Jan. 3.

Uttar Pradesh is India’s most populous state and is ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, which enacted a stringent anti-conversion law in 2021 targeting mostly Christians.

Many cases were registered against Lal under the anti-conversion law but he got bail from the courts.

A police official at Naini police station in Prayagraj district where the latest complaint was registered said Tripathi stated in his complaint that two men who accompanied Lal in a vehicle opened fire at him while he was returning home from a morning walk.

“I hope and pray that truth will triumph,” Lal’s associate said, adding that he was being targeted “mostly because of his religion.”

He said the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act 2021 makes it easy to file false complaints against Christians.

In October last year, Lal’s brother, Vinod Bihari Lal, who is a director of the university, was arrested in a case of alleged attempted murder. He is still in jail.

The Lal brothers and other university officials had several criminal cases registered against them, including allegations of religious conversion and sexual exploitation of a former female staffer.

The top court in the country on Dec. 19 restrained police from arresting Lal in connection with the former female staffer’s case.

“It is a very tough time for the Lal brothers and the university as government agencies are after them,” the associate noted.

The university, earlier known as the Allahabad Agricultural Institute, was founded by American Presbyterian missioner Sam Higginbottom in 1910.

During his stay in India, Higginbottom was instrumental in introducing modern cultivation methods and was close to Mahatma Gandhi and the nation’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.

In 1947, when British colonial rule ended, the institute was brought under a board of directors, representing 14 Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church.

However, it is now under the control of the Lal brothers.

India recorded 687 incidents of persecution against Christians in 2023 from January to November. Among them, 287 incidents were reported from Uttar Pradesh alone, according to a report by the United Christian Forum, an ecumenical body that records violence against Christians in India.

Christians make up a mere 0.18 percent of Uttar Pradesh’s 200 million people.

This article is originally published on https://www.ucanews.com/news/police-detain-christian-official-of-british-era-varsity-in-india/103706