Indian police have arrested a Protestant pastor and his wife for allegedly indulging in religious conversions, say Christian leaders.
Police in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, where a sweeping anti-conversion law is in force, arrested Pastor Santosh John and his wife, Jiji John, on Feb. 26 based on a complaint by Bajrang Dal, an ultra-Hindu outfit.
“Pastor John and his wife were summoned in the morning for questioning and were freed later in the evening. But they were arrested after a mob protested in front of the police station,” Minakshi Singh, a Christian activist, told UCA News on Feb. 28.
John and his wife were holding a prayer service in a rented basement in Indrapuram in Uttar Pradesh near India’s capital New Delhi when the mob created a ruckus and accused them of religious conversion.
The couple appeared before a magistrate on Feb. 28 and were denied bail.
Singh, general secretary of Unity in Compassion, a charity based in Uttar Pradesh, India’s largest state, said, “Pastor John and his wife are lodged in the Dasana jail in Uttar Pradesh.”
Police came under pressure from the administration, headed by Yogi Adityanath of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and the Bajrang Dal, which is affiliated to the parent organization of the BJP, said Singh, who was seeking legal aid for the couple.
“Why should they arrest the pastor and his wife without any evidence?”

As many as 93 former civil servants have written to Prime Minister Narendra Modi about what they assay are recent increase in attacks on Christians in India.
Banded under the Constitutional Conduct Group, the retired bureaucrats, urged Modi in their March 4 open letter to reassure Chri-stians in the country that it will get equal and unbiased treatment from administration and the law.
“We are a group of former civil servants of the All India and Central Services who have worked in the Central and State Govern-ments during our careers. As a group, we have no affiliation with any political party but believe in impartiality, neutrality and share a commitment to the Constitution of India,” says the opening of the letter.
The bureaucrats say they write to the prime minister because they are “deeply perturbed” by the continued harassment, through speech and criminal action, of minority groups in the country by persons associated with your government, your party, organizations connected to it, and by mischief makers from amongst the public.
“While we are concerned about the hate crimes and speeches against all minorities, we write to you today about the steadily in-creasing ugly words and actions against a small religious minority, the Christians. Our Constitution clearly spells out that all citizens, irrespective of religion, are equal and have equal rights, but we are compelled to protest to you against the increasing incidents of outright discrimination against Christians occurring in recent times,” the letter adds.
The letter points out that although some groups accuse Christians of indulging forcible religious conversion, the community share in the Indian popular has remained around 2.3 percent since 1951.
“Yet, in the minds of some, this minuscule number poses a threat to the 80 percent of the population that is Hindu,” says the letter.
The accusation has made Christians and their institutions victims of verbal, physical and psychological attacks in various parts of the country. “It is an unfortunate but inesca-pable fact that there are elements amongst us who may feel that the denigration of others enhances themselves,” the letter bemoans.
Noting the contributions of Christians to the education and health sectors and social reform, the former civil servants said that India has been home to “Christianity since the first century CE, long before its intro-duction in many countries that are today predominantly Christian.”

The Catholic Church in the western Indian state of Gujarat state has sought police protection after one of its schools faced a ruckus by a right wing Hindu mob.
“We request you to take necessary action against such unruly elements and grant us police protection so that no untoward situation occurs in our premises or to any member of our institution,” Father Teles Fernandes, secretary of the Gujarat Education Board of Catholic Institutions, wrote to state Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel.
The February 20 letter also urged him to provide protection to St. Mary’s Higher Secondary School in Amreli, some 245 km southwest of Ahmedabad, the state’s commercial capital.
The mob on February 20 insisted installing the pictures of Hindu deities in classrooms and the principal’s office.
School principal Father Binu Kunnel told Matters India on February 22, “The crowd spent the whole day in the school campus insisting on their demand, however, did not unleash any violence.”
The principal also added that the ruckus seemed to be part of a planned operation to tarnish the school’s image.
Father Fernandes’ letter said the “unruly large group” comprised members of the vishwa Hindu Parishad (world Hindu council) and Bajrang Dal (Brigade of Lord Hanuman).

A Catholic social worker, who has campaigned against substance abuse for three decades, on February 15 received the first “Life Time Achievement award” instituted by a Jain center in Karnataka.
Dharmasthala conferred the award on Thomas Scaria, who heads the Ecolink Institute of Well-being, for his outstanding contributions to prevent and manage substance abuse.
Karnataka Governor Thawar Chand Gehlot gave away the award at a function at Dharmasthala, some 75 km east of Mangaluru, a port town in the southern Indian state. It comprises a citation, memento and a cash award of 25,000 rupees.
Veerendra Heggade, the Dharmadhikari (head) of Dharmasthala who instituted the award, pointed out that Scaria was the first recipient of the award. He congratulated the winner for his contributions to the community management of addiction and capacity building of the work force.
Scaria, who is also a senior journalist, has spent three decades in campaigning against drugs and alcoholism and training hundreds of addiction professionals globally.
The governor, a former federal minister of Social Justice and Empowerment, underlined the need for more committed people to work among drug users and alcohol dependents. “Substance Use Disorder is growing day by day, and only a movement can curb its growth,” he asserted.
Scaria started his mission on drug prevention in 1991 by initiating a students’ movement against addiction called Link Anti Addiction Action Group and later co-founding the Link Rehabilitation Center, where he served as its director for 20 years.
He joined Colombo Plan in 2010 and coordinated several projects in addiction management and capacity building in more than 25 countries for almost 10 years before returning to India.
Currently, he is engaged in training addiction professionals from nearly 20 countries as the approved training provider of the Colombo Plan and as a global trainer under the UNODC.

Several thousand voters belonging to religious minorities such as Christians and Muslims have been allegedly removed from electoral rolls in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, say Catholic leaders.
The state, where the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) runs the government, is headed for polls in May and Christian leaders suspect deleting minority voters could be a strategy to retain power.
A delegation from Bangalore archdiocese on Feb. 15 submitted a memorandum to the state’s chief electoral officer (CEO) saying a total of 9,195 voters’ names were removed from electoral rolls of the Shivajinagar constituency in the state capital, Bengaluru.
At least Some 8,000 names were of Christians and Muslims, the memorandum said.
“We fear that [voters lists for] many constituencies across Bengaluru city could have tampered with impunity. If such mischief is allowed to carry on unchecked, the confidence of the people in the electoral process will be destroyed beyond measure,” J. A. Kanthraj, public relations officer of the Archdiocese of Bangalore, told UCA News.

A Protestant bishop was remanded in judicial custody in connection with an alleged case of religious conversion in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
The family members of Auxiliary Bishop Paul Muniya of the Shalom Church in Jhabua district have denied the allegation and asserted that the prelate was charged with a fake conversion case.
A local court remanded Bishop Muniya in judicial custody on February 23 after he surrendered to the police more than a month after the case was registered against him.
He surrendered in compliance with an order from the Indore bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court, the top court in the state.
One Kailash Bhuria, a local resident, on January 11 filed a police complaint alleging that Bishop Muniya and Tita Bhuria, an elderly church member, in September 2022 invited him to a church and sprinkled some water on him and gave him a copy of the Bible and a cross.
When he refused to attend church services subsequently they threatened him. He also sought police protection and action against the bishop and the community member.
Kaleb Muniya, the prelate’s son, said his father was accused of violating the provisions of the state’s stringent anti-conversion law.
The police arrested and sent Tita Bhuria to jail soon after the complaint was filed on January 11.

In the wake of State Elections this month in Tripura, Nagaland and Meghalaya, Chri-stian leaders from different parts of Assam and North East region calls on citizens in the region to remain alert on threats to the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution of India and safeguards ensured therein to the people.
A meeting was held in Guwahati last on February 17 with a commitment to solidarity with one another and those who are discriminated against.
In the meeting, the leaders took note of incidents against Christians in the country which include hate-speeches, humiliation and violence targeting individuals and groups, destruction and desecration of property and places of worship.
“Brutality and crime like the murder of Graham Staines in Odisha more than 20 years ago, barbaric abuses of human rights against Christian communities in Kandhamal in 2008 and many innumerable more in different parts of the country especially in States where the ruling dispensation remain consensually silent against the perpetrators of these acts,” a press statement reads.
The Christian leaders also claimed that since the last few years atrocities against Christians and Churches have increased in numbers and intensity with many more cases going unreported, and the recent incidents in this region with the “authorised census” targeting Christian individuals, families and groups in Assam.
“In the guise of clearing encroachments on the forests, worship places are destroyed, eviction and displacement of Boro families and communities who are indigenous settlers have taken place and the majority of the members are Christians. Meanwhile, what cannot go unnoticed is that hundreds of acres of tribal land and resources are being handed over to persons and groups alien to the region which is an effort towards the economic exploitation of our region, especially the land and assets of the weaker communities by the dominating groups who are trying to gain control and power in targeted locations. A fear is being expressed about the sinister threat of removing the ST status from Tribal Christians and others which will effectively take away the constitutional rights and status of the indigenous citizen of the land,” the statement added.

More than 2,000 people were arrested Friday in India’s remote northeast after a government crackdown on illegal child marriages, police said.
India is home to more than 220 million child brides, according to UN figures, but the number of child weddings has fallen dramatically this century.
The two-week police campaign in Assam state began after chief minister Himanta Biswa Sarma called on public help to abolish the “evil practice”.
Sarma said almost one in every eight women in Assam had to bear children before turning 18 which was contributing to high infant and maternal mortality rates in the state.
State police director general GP Singh said 2,044 people were arrested in the first day, including 52 priests and legal authorities who had presided over marriages.
Singh said girls as young as 12 were still being married to men in the state and police had come up with a total of 4,074 cases to investigate.
The legal marriage age in India is 18 but millions of children are forced to tie the knot when they are younger, particularly in poorer rural areas.
Many parents marry off their children in the hope of improving their financial security.

It is an open secret. There is no love lost between India’s religious minorities and the federal government led by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
When Muslims, the largest minority that makes up 14.2 percent of the nation’s 1.4 billion people, needed a healing touch they got a budgetary shock in the form of a major cut to funds meant for their welfare.
The presentation of this week’s national budget was greeted with disappointment and cynicism by the nation’s 170 million Muslims, accentuating the existing trust deficit between them and the ruling dispensation.
Christians, the second largest minority group comprising 23 million people, along with the others had expected increased budgetary allocations to continue the ongoing welfare schemes, notably the merit-cum-means scholarship for professional and technical courses meant for students.
Instead, they got the proverbial rude jolt in the form of a slash in the allocations for different welfare schemes, which they were least expecting.
After all, for years now, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been chanting his pet credo, Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas – meaning ‘together, for everyone’s growth, with everyone’s trust’ – assuring the minorities that they will not face any discrimination.
Clearly, the budget has turned out to be exactly the opposite. It only helps to reaffirm the minorities’ perception that the BJP is biased and discriminates against them, treating them as second-class citizens.
Consider these figures to see why minorities are angry and disappointed.
The budget allocation for the federal ministry of minority affairs has been reduced by 38 percent from 50.205 billion rupees (US$610 million) last year to 30.970 billion rupees (US$376 million) now.

More than a thousand Catholics joined a rally on Feb. 5, demanding the reinstatement of a bishop in the southern Indian state of Karnataka who is facing allegations of sexual abuse and financial mismanagement.
The Vatican appointed Retired Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore the apostolic administrator of Mysore Diocese last month, after announcing that Bishop Kannikadass A William of Mysore has proceeded on leave due to health reasons.
“We demand that our Bishop William be immediately reinstated,” said Mathew Suresh, convenor of Mysore Diocesan Laity Voice, which organized the rally.
Suresh, former public relations officer of the diocese, told UCA News that a memorandum was submitted to Archbishop Moras after the rally.
“Filthy messages by some diocesan priests regarding our bishop are being circulated on social media, alleging that the bishop was kicked out of the diocese as he has five mistresses and many illegitimate children,” Suresh said.
The protest – named peace and prayer rally – covered some three kilometers through a public road from St Joseph’s Cathedral to culminate at the Bishop’s House at Bannimantap.