By Matters India Reporter
Lucknow, Feb 6, 2023: A priest of Lucknow Catholic diocese was among seven people remanded to judicial custody on February 6 for allegedly trying to convert poor Hindus.
Father Dominic Pinto and others were presented before the court of Chief Judicial Magistrate in Barabanki, some 90 km northwest of Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh state. The arrested included five Protestant pastors.
The court remanded them in judicial custody.
Father Pinto is the director of Navintha, the pastoral center of Lucknow diocese, that was used by the Protestant pastors and around 100 Khrist Bhakts (followers of Christ) for their routine prayer meeting.
The arrest took place on February 5 after they were accused of trying to convert the poor to Christianity.
The arrest took place after Hindu radicals protested in front of Navintha that comes under the Deva police station in Barabanki district.
The First Information Report named 15 persons, including five women, as accused.
The arrested are charged under the provisions of the state’s anti-conversion law and, if found guilty, they could be imprisoned for a maximum of 10 years.
“Our people are arrested based on totally baseless charges,” bemoans Father Donald de Souza, chancellor and spokesperson of Lucknow diocese.
He told Matters India that Father Pinto was not even attending the prayer gathering as it was a Protestant program. “Our priest only gave the building for their meeting.”
The diocesan official said they plan to move a fresh bail application for Father Pinto’s release.
“The only crime of Father Pinto was that he allowed them to hold their prayer meeting in the pastoral center,” Father de Souza explained.
He said Khrist Bhakts and Protestants used to conduct such prayer gatherings in the pastoral center. “There was nothing like religious conversion as was alleged,” he added.
A Hindu leader, Brijesh Kumar Vaishya, in his police complaint accused the Christians of alluring poor Hindus, especially from Dalit communities, to become Christians.
Father de Souza alleged that the protesters even tried to assault women present at the center, but it was foiled. “They even staged a protest in front of the police station demanding to name the priest in the FIR as one of the accused.”
Persecution against Christians witnessed a sharp rise recently in Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India.
“Christians are arrested and sent to jail dubbing their routine prayer services as religious conversion activities, based on totally false complaints,” said a Christian leader who did not want to be named.
Uttar Pradesh accounted for 287 of the total 687 incidents of persecution against Christians reported from across India during January-November, 2023, according to the United Christian Forum, a New Delhi-based ecumenical group.
Christians form only 0.18 percent of Uttar Pradesh’s more than 200 million people, 79.73 percent of them Hindus.