The violence and harassment against Christians persist unabated in India, with at least two cases of harassment and police arrests over the weekend. A Catholic nun and a group of girls were detained in Jharkhand on suspicion of conversion on Sept. 19, while police in Uttar Pradesh arrested 14 Christians for allegedly violating the state’s strict anti-conversion law and the national criminal code.
In the Jharkhand incident, a Catholic nun, two staff members of a non-government organization, and 19 girls were detained at a railway station in Jamshedpur, eastern India. Church sources say police action followed allegations made by some right-wing Hindu groups, as the girls were traveling to attend a training program, and the nuns came to the railway station to welcome them.
Father Birendra Tete, director of Catholic Charities in the Jamshedpur diocese, told that the girls, aged 13-19, arrived for a focused event on adolescent health and skill development scheduled for Sept. 20-21. The police checked the girls’ documents, including consent papers from their parents and national identity cards, but seven of them did not have these papers, and some Hindu activists began to make noise. Diocesan chancellor Father Sushil Dungdung stated that Hindu hardliners, who are working to turn India into a Hindu theocratic country, often make false accusations to harass Christians and portray them negatively. About 1.4 million of Jharkhand’s estimated 33 million people are Christians, mostly tribal communities.
