On Thursday, the Uttar Pradesh Police told the Supreme Court that it had strong evidence in the mass religious conversion case of persons from Hindu religion to Christianity at Evangelical Church of India, Hariharganj, Fatehpur by defrauding them. The lawyer appearing for the state said that the police had recordings of people in which Adhaar Cards of the Hindu people were being changed and money was being offered to them in return.
This is after Senior Advocate Dushyant Dave, appearing for the defendants in the case alleged that the Hindu organizations like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad had picked up the persons to wrongly prove that they were forcibly converted to Christianity. “200 FIRs have been filed across Uttar Pradesh for no offence,” Dave claimed.
The UP govt’s counsel rejected this claim by Dave that the accused persons were booked without an offence. He said that the accused were seen on camera changing Aadhaar card details of victims, and it is not that there is no case.
The SC then asked the parties to file their pleadings in the case and said that the case would be next heard in the month of July.
The case concerns Mass religious conversion of persons from Hindu religion to Christianity at Evangelical Church of India, Hariharganj, Fatehpur by defrauding them. SC had protected the Vice Chancellor of a university who was allegedly involved from arrest in March
— LawBeat (@LawBeatInd) May 4, 2023
As reported earlier, the FIR in this case was filed last year in April in response to a complaint made by a VHP leader named Himanshu Dixit alleging that about 90 people of the Hindu religion had gathered at the Evangelical Church of India in Hariharganj, Fatehpur, with the intention of converting to Christianity through coercion and undue influence. The accused had also promised easy money, among other tactics to the Hindus.
The government officials arrived at the scene after receiving this information and questioned the pastor, Vijay Massiah, who admitted that the conversion process had been ongoing for 34 days and was expected to be finished in 40 days.
The pastor Vijay Massiah was arrested by the Uttar Pradesh Police on October 31, 2022 for illegally converting a group of Hindus to Christianity in the Fatehpur. The accused was absconding after he was booked in another case of illegal mass conversion of Hindus to Christianity in around July of that year. The Police arrested him after they got a tip against the accused who was secretively carrying out another mass conversion in Hariharganj Church of the city.
The accused pastor was arrested while he was giving lessons about Christianity to Hindus and was trying to forcefully change their religion in the name of prayers. The Police arrived at the spot after they were informed about the illegal conversion and arrested the pastor for luring the Hindus. The Police also recovered several Aadhaar Cards with different identities from the accused.
The accused pastor during the investigation confessed that he was illegally converting a group of Hindus to Christianity in the Hariharganj Church of the city. He said that the Aadhaar Cards recovered by the Police belonged to those Hindus who had been converted and that their identities had been updated after they had been given lessons about Christianity and converted to a new religion.
The Police in April last year had also arrested around 26 people including the pastor in a case of mass conversion of Hindus to Christianity in the ECI Church building in Uttar Pradesh. Police had booked 55 people in total in the case, including 10 women. The names of the accused included Vijay Kumar Samson, Reshma Samson, Ratna Daud, Sharon, Jyoti Monalisa, Geeta Masih, and more.
The matter had come to light after the members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal surrounded the ECI Church building in Fatehpur, Uttar Pradesh, and staged protests against the pastor who was allegedly converting more than 50 Hindus inside the Church. Around 100 people had gathered inside the Church on April 14 of which more than 50 were Hindus. The VHP members had also gathered outside the Church and alleged that the pastor in the name of prayers was giving lessons of Christianity to Hindus and was trying to forcefully change their religion.
The accused converted poor Hindus under the guise of a healing assembly. On receiving the complaint, the police registered a case against Massiah and the other persons involved. While they arrested many other accused involved in the case, they could not nab pastor Vijay Massiah who went absconding from the spot. However, the accused pastor was arrested by the Police in October while he was secretively luring, brainwashing innocent and poor Hindus and forcing them to convert to Christianity.
The VHP and Bajrang Dal members had launched protest in April last year and had demanded strict action against the Church for conducting a religious gathering without permission and inviting local Hindus to it. They reiterated that the pastor intended to convert the religion of Hindus.
The VHP leader Himanshu Dixit had also alleged that the pastor was deceptively giving lessons of Christianity in the church by luring poor Hindus. He said that it was the fifth time that a similar incident had happened in the area. “The pastor invites poor Hindus and brainwashes and illegally converts them by offering some ‘religious’ drink. So far five such cases in the church have come to the fore, where the disgusting game of conversion is being played under the guise of a healing meeting without any permission”, Dixit had said adding that the police never take any action against the Church.
However, after the arrest of the accused pastor, the Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) of the Uttar Pradesh Police took over the investigation and probed into the foreign funding links of the accused. The details of the bank accounts of as many as 31 of the 36 accused were scrutinised and the UP ATS suspected that the accused had been receiving foreign funding to fuel illegal religious conversions in the state.
