Two recent cases have vindicated church leaders’ belief that Christians are being targeted falsely in “kidnapping for conver-sion” cases to tarnish their image and handicap their work, lawyers say. A state court in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, on Oct. 30 released seven children taken to a shelter a week earlier. Two women traveling with them, Anita Joseph and Amrit Kumar, were arrested and accused of kidnapping them.
Police said the women were arrested after a group called Dharma Jagran Manch (Vigilant Group for Hindu Religion) complained that the children, all aged under 14, were being taken to Mumbai by train for conversion to Christianity.
The two women are still in jail as their bail application was not heard by the court.
Six other Christians from Simdega in eastern Jharkhand state arrested on charges of religious conversion were granted bail October 27. They were detained a month earlier and accused of distributing money for the purpose of converting villagers.
Parents of the seven children released from the shelter said at a October 30 press conference, that all the youngsters were baptized Christians and the women were taking them to Mumbai with their permission.
The group of some 200 Hindu hardliners who went to the rail station had also attacked some of the parents who had come to see off their children. Police who detained the children and two women, sent the youngsters to a shelter without allowing their parents to go with them.
The pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has governed Madhya Pradesh state for the past 14 years.
“This is becoming a politically motivated pattern to harass Christians,” said A.C. Michael, an official of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a forum of volunteer lawyers providing legal advice to Christians.
Michael said the false accusation is “deliberately done knowing very well that such accusations will not stand up in a court of law.”
