By Matters India Reporter
Jabalpur: The Madhya Pradesh High Court on March 16 granted anticipatory bail to a Catholic nun accused of violating the central Indian state’s anti-conversion law.
Sister Bhagya, a member of the Sisters of the Destitute, was asked to furnish personal bond of 10,000 rupees and with one solvent surety of the same amount to avail the interim bail.
The single judge bench has posted the case to April 7 for the next hearing.
The nun, who is the principal of the Sacred Heart Convent High School in Khajuraho of Chhatarpur district, has been booked under sections 3 and 5 of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Ordinance, 2020.
The allegation against her is that she attempted to convert a former staff member who functioned as an Assistant Librarian in the said school and whose services were terminated subsequently on account of poor performance.
In the First Information Report dated February 22 the woman alleged that her husband, who was ailing with a mental disorder, was promised to be cured by the nun provided she and her family got converted to Christianity. “It is also stated that she had given the allurement that the Christian God is greater than the Hindu God,” the court noted.
The nun and the local Church authorities have denied the charges.
They said Ruby Singh, the Hindu woman, had joined the school as a teacher in 2016. The school management terminated her services during the Covid-19 lockdown after complaints about her teaching from parents and students, they explained.
The case was the latest in a series of such cases filed against Christians after the state’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government implemented the anti-conversion law in January.
The school, managed by the Sisters of the Destitute, has about 1,000 students. As Singh continued to create a problem, the school management complained to the police on February 17 seeking protection from her.
In the said complaint, the applicant herein has stated that the complainant was terminated from the services of school on account of her poor performance and lack of documents and that she is giving threats of committing self-immolation if she is not reinstated on her job.