As many as 14 people belonging to Andhra Pradesh and Bihar were detained in the Garhwa district of Jharkhand on June 14 for allegedly inciting the locals against their bonafide religion.
As per the information contained, residents of Tandava colony under Garhwa police station of Jharkhand on June 14 filed a written complaint against as many as 20 people from the Christian community for provoking the locals to quit the Sanatana Dharma and embrace Christianity through means of fallacy.
In the complaint letter to the Garhwa police, the locals have alleged the members of the A.P.S welfare society led by a man identified as Ashutosh Anand, a resident of the same colony, for provoking them for conversion in the guise of vaccination and awareness campaign.
As per the complaint letter, members of the A.P.S welfare society, on June 14 led by Ashutosh Anand, arrived at the doors of locals and informed them that they were running a vaccination drive for hepatitis B. However, while interacting with the locals, they soon began to propagate their religion (Christianity) and started showing the Sanatana Dharma in bad light.
It’s been reported that when the locals objected to the propaganda being unleashed by the missionaries, they started cursing the people and threatened them that they would lose their dear ones if they did not choose to convert.
Astonishingly, a CRPF personnel was also among the group of missionaries against whom the locals have filed a complaint. The personnel has been identified as G Raju, an Andhra Pradesh resident currently posted at the CRPF group centre in Rampur, Uttar Pradesh. It’s been learnt that the said personnel was on leave and has arrived in Jharkhand for the mission work in between.
As many as a dozen persons who were part of the group are from Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, while the rest are residents of Munger in Bihar. It’s been learnt that the group leader Ashutosh Anand was a resident of Munger and resided in Garhwa for four years.
The missionary group also includes a couple of women along with children who were accompanying them in mission work. One of the women, identified as Priya Bharti, a resident of Munger, said that she has been residing in Tandava since 2021 and has been only distributing books of Jesus Christ among the locals. The other woman, identified as Tanu Kumari, said that she was the niece of Priya and had come to Jharkhand only to see her.
Though Garhwa police, on the other hand, after initially detaining the mission workers after the complaint of the locals, later decided to release them after an investigation. Speaking with the Organiser Thana Incharge, Garhwa K K Sahu said that we have conducted a thorough enquiry into the matter and found nothing against the mission workers. We also spoke to a few complainants who denied signing the letter following which we decided to release the mission workers. We will also initiate a probe about any foul play in the said complaint letter.
Meanwhile, speaking with the Organiser representative Vipul Dubey, the district head of the ‘Yogi Sena’, said that there is a pattern going on in Garhwa where missionaries are luring and inciting the local Hindus to convert to Christianity.
“The locals are furious with the attempts of these missionaries who are leaving no stone unturned in provoking people to change their religion and embrace Christianity. They even approach the locals in the guise of doing health relief work though their sole motto is to convert more and more people. Also, the local Hindus are growing impatient with the attitude of the local administration and the police, and if the same pattern continues, they will start disbelieving the authorities”, added Vipul Dubey.
The Organiser representative also spoke with one of the locals who initially informed the police about the incident. During the conversation, it was learned that Ashutosh Anand had been frequently visiting the locals in the name of treatment for a long time and was provoking them to change their religion. The local youth also informed the representative that around 20 boxes containing religious text had been recovered from Anand.
It is to be noted that this is not the first such incident reported from the tribal-dominated State in which the missionaries are found to be luring the local Hindus to convert to Christianity, and time and again, similar incidents of inciting the local Hindus for conversion has been making the headlines for long.
Recently in another such incident reported from Devgaon of Chakradharpur, around half a dozen missionaries were found to be illegally teaching Christian religious texts to local children. The incident came to light when a few locals visited the spot where minors were illegally lured into reading Christian religious books.
In the viral video pertaining to the incident, a few locals can be seen giving a stern warning to the missionaries who were also found to be distributing Christian religious texts among the children.
Earlier in another such incident, a huge conversion racket being operated in the State was busted in September last year. The widespread racket, which has been going on for long, got busted when around as many as 12 tribal girls were rescued from a house in Pipradih village of neighbouring Rohtas district.
It had come to the fore that the girls were part of a larger group of around 71 children who were being transported to a seminary cum conversion centre in Nagpur of Maharashtra. During the course of the investigation, it was revealed that hundreds of children from the bordering areas of Jharkhand and Bihar were sent to the said seminary on a regular basis.
The racket was unearthed when Savita Dey, director of a sub-centre of Childline India, had got information about children being taken to Nagpur, following which she, with the help of Railway police, managed to rescue one of the girls of the group from Dehri railway station. Upon enquiring, the girl informed that around 50 other girls had already boarded the train while a dozen were kept at a house in Pipradih.
Following the information, a police team then raids and rescued as many as 12 tribal girls, along with a missionaries agent Ram Baran Oraon from a house in Pipradih. During the investigation, Oraon disclosed that he was assigned with a task to identify poor Hindu families with minor children from Garhwa and Rohtas.
It was then reported that children, after arriving at the seminary, had to enroll themselves into an 18 month long so-called motivational course during which they were subjected to brainwashing and then converted to Christianity. It was also reported that after converting to Christianity a few of the selected candidates among them were then assigned with a task to bring more children to the center.
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