On Wednesday, July 3rd, the Legal Rights Protection Forum (LRPF) filed a complaint against Calvary Ministries in Telangana’s Bellampally region run by Christian Pastor R Praveen Kumar and Sharon. The complaint was filed after the Pastor was allegedly found imposing cruelty and medical negligence in the name of miracle healing towards a little girl who was suffering from kidney failure.
As per the LRPF, a video was posted on 16th May on the official YouTube channel of Pastor Praveen Kumar in which a mother of a little girl explained that her daughter was suffering from kidney damage. The mother could be seen crying in the video as she stated that her little girl had been under treatment at the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) of Niloufer Hospital, Hyderabad for the last 3 days and that she had got her to the Calvary Church’s Miracle Healing Show in Hyderabad for her life to be saved.
According to the girl’s mother, physicians advised them that the girl would not survive any longer, so they took her immediately from the ICU to the Calvary Church, despite the doctors’ warnings. She also stated that they signed an undertaking paper stating that doctors would not be responsible if anything happened to their daughter’s life. According to the mother’s statement, the girl was unable to move owing to kidney damage but can now walk.
“It is evident from the video posted on Pastor R Praveen Kumar’s YouTube channel that, instead of providing sufficient medical treatment to the little girl during her critical situation, her parents took her to the Miracle Healing Show organized by Pastor Praveen Kumar and Sharon under the impression that her daughter would be cured with their prayers. It is also evident from the video that the little girl, who was just brought from the ICU after rejecting ongoing medical treatment by her parents, was subjected to cruelty and forced to walk during the Miracle Show by Pastor Praveen Kumar,” LRPF said in the complaint filed with the NCPCR.
“The act of cruelty by Pastor Praveen Kumar and Ms Sharon of Calvary Ministries towards the little girl who was suffering from serious kidney damage. Moreover, the video-graphed the minor girl child and uploaded it on their YouTube to project themselves as Miracle Healers. This is an act of causing damage to the dignity and privacy of the victim girl,” the organization added in the complaint.
Calvary Ministries is a trust registered under registration number 39/2013. Its registered office is at Somagudem in Mancherial District, Telangana.
The trust was incorporated in 2003. As per the LRPF, Pastor R Praveen Kumar, President of the Calvary Ministries Trust, and his wife, Sharon, have put on enormous Miracle Healing exhibitions in Bellampally and Hyderabad in the name of religious prayer gatherings.
The complainant states that the Pastor and his wife are giving the impoverished, uneducated, marginalized, and weaker sectors the erroneous impression that they can treat any critical medical conditions with their prayers, something doctors and medical specialists cannot do.
In this sense, they have arranged for a few persons to appear at large crowds and provide false testimony that their medical problems have been healed thanks to Pastor Praveen Kumar’s prayers. These testimonial videos are being shared on their official YouTube channels for publicity.
It is crucial to note that the Pastor and his wife were booked in the year 2019 in a similar case. On 25th May 2019, an FIR was registered against the duo under sections 304-II, 420, and 34 of the Indian Penal Code, 1860 at Kasipet police, Bellampally after a 21-year-old person died due to negligence of the Pastor.
The case was filed in response to a complaint initiated by Girishetty Mangamma who stated that her son Girishetty Rajesh, 21, who was suffering from a severe fever, went to the Miracle Healing Show at Calvary Church in the hopes that the prayers of Pastor Praveen Kumar and Sister Sharon would cure him.
As his health deteriorated, he desired to leave the Church grounds and travel to the hospital for medical attention. However, Pastor Praveen Kumar, sister Sharon, and other pastors refused to allow her son to be taken to the hospital, and he died in Calvary Church. The FIR copy of the said incident has been obtained by OpIndia.
Section 5 of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954, forbids the advertisement of Magic Remedies for the treatment of specific diseases and ailments. The subsection further reads: “- No person carrying on or purporting to carry on the profession of administering magic remedies shall take any part in the publication of any advertisement referring to any magic remedy which directly or indirectly claims to be efficacious for any of the purposes specified in section 3”.
Section 7 of the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisements) Act, 1954 deals with punishment provisions and plainly states: “–Whoever contravenes any of the provisions of this Act [or the rules issued thereunder] shall, on conviction, be penalized – a) in the case of a first conviction, with imprisonment for up to six months, a fine, or both; b) in the case of a subsequent conviction, imprisonment for up to one year, a fine, or both.
The complaint has been registered with the NCPCR seeking strict action against the accused persons.
