A brazen case of religious conversion has been reported from Madhya Pradesh’s capital Bhopal. Employees of a charitable trust who were sacked from their jobs have filed a complaint at the Chola Mandir police station alleging that they were forced to proselytise and distribute copies of the Bible to bring non-believers under the fold of Christianity.
According to an investigation conducted by Dainik Bhaskar, the employees of CFI Charitable Trust were fired because they refused to partake in the company’s conversion activities. Reportedly, their refusal to distribute Bibles to people was found as grounds for their dismissal from the job. Allegedly, the trust has fired 22 employees so far for refusing to be involved in proselytisation activities.
Additionally, the trust has filed a counter-complaint against one Rajesh Khanna for his indecent behaviour with them.
Dr Preeti Nair, in-charge of MCI under CFI, which describes itself as a charitable trust, flatly denied the allegations levelled against the organisation. Meanwhile, the police remain tight-lipped on the incident and insisted that they would comment on the matter after a thorough investigation is completed.
The fired employees, all of whom were women, spoke on the condition of anonymity to Dainik Bhaskar. They had been in the employment of the trust for the last 2-3 years, during which time they were put into the service of pregnant women. They revealed that their organisation pestered them into distributing Bible. Their refusal to humour organisation’s demand was met with disapproval and misbehaviour from the staff, ultimately leading to their dismissal, the women asserted.
As per the report, all the employees were called on Wednesday to attend a meeting chaired by Dr Preeti. During this meeting, the women claim, they were fired from the job. There was an altercation between Dr Preeti and the women over their dismissal. A video of the verbal spat has gone viral in which the two sides had reportedly levelled allegations against each other. Feva Thomas, a health consultant in the institution, dared the sacked women to prove her organisation indulged in proselytising activities.
CFI employee says trust indulgew in propagating Christianity and distributing Bibles
Rajesh Khanna, an employee of the charitable trust CFI for the last 5 years, made a candid confession while talking to Bhaskar. He admitted that the trust is putting pressure on its employees to propagate Christianity and distribute Bibles to its clientele. The female social workers working under him were also asked to distribute the Bible. When they refused, the trust fired them.
Khanna said that on Wednesday afternoon, the head of the institution Dr Preeti Nair, along with Health consultant Feva had called the disgruntled women for talks. They had asked Rajesh to remain outside the office while the women went inside to have a discussion with the duo. Hearing heated argument from inside, Khanna barged into the meeting room. He said Dr Preeti and Feva then started accusing the women and Khanna of misbehaving with them.
Although a written complaint has been made to the Chola Mandir police, the police have till now not registered a case in the matter, claims Khanna. On Thursday, he also resigned from his job.
CFI head denies allegations of religious conversions
CFI is a charitable trust that undertakes social work like education, working for women and children. The organization is said to be about 20 years old. Its chief doctor is Saji Thomas. The head office is located at Shankar Garden, Ayodhya Bypass, Bhopal.
Dr Preeti, the head of the trust, rejected the allegations of religious conversion levelled against her organisation. She said she is at her wits’ end to understand why the employees were accusing them of undertaking conversion activities. Dr Preeti said none of the women being talked about were fired by the trust. Instead, she said the trust had no direct contact with the women and their point of contact was Rajesh.
‘We asked them to update their data so that we could get in touch with them’, Dr Preeti said. For this reason, they had asked them to attend a meeting on Wednesday. But the meeting went awry, Dr Preeti said, alleging that wrong allegations were made against them. “We neither asked them to distribute copies of the Bible. The allegation that we asked them to convert people is also wrong. We have also complained against Rajesh for indecent behavior in the police station,” Dr Preeti said.
