Madhya Pradesh police in Barwani district of the state have arrested a couple identified as Anar Singh Jamre (35) and his wife Laxmi Jamre (32) under the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act on Friday, according to reports. The police informed about the arrest Anar Singh Jamre, a resident of Nawalpura village on Saturday.
As per reports, the couple was arrested for targeting tribal women and luring them to convert to Christianity. The complaint filed by Prakash Chauhan, a resident of Madil village stated that the couple bribed the tribal women with money, free education, free medicine, employment and other facilities in order to convert them to Christianity. The tribal women were invited to the homes of the couple where the illegal conversion was carried out.
Rajesh Yadav, the in-charge at the Rajpur police station also revealed that the accused were released after the court granted them bail.
Notably, in the amended form of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, provision has been included for punishment for conversion of religion through illegal means such as fraud, inducement. A provision has also been made for the imprisonment of two to 10 years and a Rs 50,000 fine in cases where religious conversion of people belonging to Scheduled Castes, Scheduled Tribes and minors were involved.
Earlier, four persons were detained by the Bhopal police for vandalism and ruckus allegedly at a missionary school in Ganjbasoda town of Madhya Pradesh’s Vidisha district. It was also alleged that eight students were converted to Christianity at the place. MP Home Minister Narottam Mishra had stated that in places like Ganjbasoda, the investigation was being conducted on PFI (Popular Front of India) and NGOs for using foreign funds for religious conversion.
On 22 October, a case of religious conversion was reported from Bhopal where employees of a charitable trust who were fired from their jobs went on and filed a complaint at the Chola Mandir police station saying that they had been forced to proselytise and distribute copies of the Bible in order to bring non-believers into the folds of Christianity.
