By Matters India Reporter
Sagar, May 9, 2023: An orphanage serving differently abled children for the past 150 years was raided by government agencies in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
The officers of the state units of National Commission for the Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) and Child Welfare Committee desecrated a church, beat up priests, destroyed computers and ransacked a convent during their May 8 raid of St Francis Orphanage at Shampura in Sagar district under Sagar diocese.
Police also arrested two priests, accusing them of obstructing government officials from discharging their duty. A local sub-divisional magistrate court granted them bail on the same day.
Father Joshy E P, one of the arrested priests, told Matters India on May 9, the police officials beat him and Father Naveen B after they objected to the inspection team members climbing on the altar of a British era church in the campus.
“The police beat and abused us with filthy language in front of everybody,” he said and added, “I was again thrashed on the police vehicle while being taken to the police station.”
The orphanage officials say the raid was unnecessary and it was done without any prior information. The raid took place a day before the Madhya Pradesh High Court was scheduled to hear the orphanage’s petition.
The renewal of the orphanage’s registration has been pending before the state government department for the past three years. They say they have not received any response to their repeated queries to the concerned departments about the delay in granting the renewal.
They also alleged that they were framed under different cases in 2021 but subsequent queries revealed the allegations were false and the charges baseless.
When the government agencies tried to shift the children forcefully in January 2022, the Church people filed a writ petition in the Madhya Pradesh High Court at Jabalpur for keeping the children in the orphanage.
“The court ordered in our favour of the orphanage and asked the parties to maintain status quo. The case is pending for hearing on May 9,” said Father Sinto Varghese, the director of the orphanage.
NCPCR chairman Priyank Kanoongo and state child rights panel team with its district team came to the orphanage with police force and others for search and confiscate the documents illegally.
The officers failed to provide search warrants or orders for the raid.
Despite producing the High Court’s status quo order, the government authorities ransacked the entire premises; the Church people bemoaned. They alleged that the raiding party took away their office computers and destroyed files. The officers also raided the nuns’ rooms in the convent attached to the orphanage.
The officers also forcefully took away CCTV DVR, office computers, mobile phones of priests, and documents of inmates. They shifted an inmate citing they found his parents without any proper documentation.
The government officers’ action is illegal and a contempt of court case will be filed against those behind the illegal inspection, Father Varghese said.
The national and state child right panels carried out several inspections in Church schools, orphanages in Madhya Pradesh in the past several months and lodged cases against them, including priests and a bishop.
A Catholic school layman principal and a priest principal were arrested and sent to jail in the state but now are out on bail.
A couple of others have filed anticipatory bail applications in the high court to protect them from arrest.