Two men acquitted of ‘unlawful conversion’ in India’s largest state
MUMBAI, India – In India, a court in the state of Uttar Pradesh court acquitted the accused men – Abhishek Gupta and Kundan Lal Kori – of charges of “unlawful conversion.”
The northern state has India’s largest population – with over 241 million people – but only has 356,000 Christians, just 0.18 percent.
According to the Indian Express, on May 29, 2022, when Himanshu Patel, a resident of Sakatpur village in Bareilly and district president of Hindu Jagran Manch, accused Gupta, a resident of Gorakhpur and former employee at Rohilkhand Medical College, of running a conversion programme with a team of eight people in Bichpuri village.
Gupta, who was posted in the CT scan technician at the Rohilkhand Medical College in Bareilly from 2007 until his arrest in 2022, lost his job and was charged in the case under the sections of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.
On May 29, 2022, Patel alleged Gupta was holding a prayer meeting at a house and converting Hindus assembled there through various allurements. Patel claimed that 40 persons who were being allegedly converted unlawfully were found at the spot.
After he raised the alarm, Patel said a group of 10-15 members of local Hindutva groups reached the village along with police. Patel alleged that copies of the Bible were recovered from Gupta and others. Kori was later made an accused in the case even though he was not identified by the complainant.
Uttar Pradesh, like the national government, is run by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), with strong links to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), a militant Hindu nationalist organization.
Hindu nationalists often accuse Christians of using force and surreptitious tactics in pursuing conversions, often storming into villages and leading “reconversion” ceremonies in which Christians are compelled to perform Hindu rituals.
These pressures on Christians, which also affect Muslims and other religious minorities, are part of what observers describe as a broad program for the “saffronization” of India under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, meaning an attempt to impose Hindu values and identity while squeezing out rival faiths.
In this latest case, the court, while acquitting two men accused of forcibly converting people to Christianity, ordered legal action against the policemen, the complainant and the witnesses for falsely implicating the duo in the case.
The court called the case “worrying for civilised society” and added that any person could initiate criminal proceedings against any other person by filing an accusation to “satisfy his/her vested interest.”
Additional sessions judge Gyanendra Tripathi held the police guilty of making a “failed attempt” to give the fabricated story a “legal form.”
The judge said the “actual culprits” in the unlawful conversion case were the complainant, his associated witnesses, the station house officer who authorised the arrest, the investigator and the officer who approved the chargesheet in the matter.
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The judge said it was clear the police lodged the case “under some pressure” on the complaint of Patel who had filed it due to his “craving for publicity.”
Significantly, the court handed the two acquitted the option of filing a civil suit against the “guilty” policemen, the complainant and the witnesses and seek appropriate compensation for the “malicious prosecution.”
Bishop Gerald Mathias of Catholic Diocese of Lucknow said the case was “some good news for persecuted Christians.”
“I hope it will serve as a deterrent for those extremists and fundamentalists who go as vigilantes and lodge [police investigations] with false charges,” he told Crux.
“I appeal to the government of Uttar Pradesh to withdraw the stringent and draconian amendments to the Anti-conversion law. These amendments will only embolden the vigilantes and widen the scope of misuse of the law which goes against the tenets of the Constitution,” the bishop said, adding he hopes police officers “will also be more careful” while writing criminal charges.