Almost three months after his arrest, a Catholic priest in northern India charged under the country’s controversial anti-conversion laws after a complaint from a member of a Hindu nationalist organization has been granted bail and is set for release.
Father Sebastian “Babu” Francis, director of social work of Allahabad diocese in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, had been taken into police custody Oct. 2.
On Oct. 1, a local leader of the right-wing BJP party of India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, along with a group of supporters, reportedly had barged into a Pentecostal prayer service falsely accusing the pastor of religious conversion. When police arrived on the scene, they also detained the pastor’s brother, who is a Catholic and who is employed with the diocesan social work department.
Eventually four members of the family were arrested, and, when they phoned Francis for help, the 56-year-old too was taken into custody.
Bishop Gerald Mathias of Lucknow, the capital city of Uttar Pradesh, told Crux at the time that the arrests amount to “sheer harassment of Christians.”