A row has erupted after members of two community collided with each other over frequent visit of pastors and his acquaintances in Kunkuri region of Chhattisgarh on Sunday, January 21.
According to the details received, the incident occurred when members of the Hindu community got engaged in a verbal spat with a few member of the Christian community which later turned violent over asking details of the frequent visit of a local pastor in Vasudevpur village of Jashpur.
A number of people have reportedly sustained injuries in the scuffle which primarily occurred between Naresh Yadav, a resident of Vasudevpur village under Duldula police station limits and Shivkumar Mahto, a resident of the aforementioned locality.
According to the details of First Information Report (F.I.R) filed by the victim Naresh Yadav, the scuffle occurred when he along with two of his associates enquired about the frequent visit of a few people in Shivkumar Mahto’s house.
When Naresh along with a few fellow villagers enquired about the people who have been visiting the premises of Mahto for quite some time, Majnu Mahto, father of Shivkumar started abusing all of them, read the FIR filed by Naresh.
The FIR copy further read that Majnu Mahto and his associates also started pelting stones on them and the other villagers who tried to intervene, resulting in injury of a number of people.
An FIR under section 294, 506 and 323 has been registered against Shivkumar Mahto, his father Majnu Mahto and others on the basis of the complain of Naresh Yadav. Meanwhile another FIR under similar sections have also been lodged by the police on the basis of a complaint file by Shivkumar Mahto.
According to the details of the complaint of Mahto, the incident occurred when he along with his father were seeing-off Pastor Mahesh mahananda, Rajendra Vishwakarma and Kishore Ekka near milk dairy in Vasudevpur when Naresh along with his associates started enquiring about the frequent visit of pastor and his associates.
The complaint further reads that Naresh and others alleged pastor Mahananda and his associates for maligning the atmosphere of the village and started thrashing them with wooden sticks resulting in injuries to a number of people.
Mahto in his complaint has also claimed that his wife is in a state of illness and he had visited Simdega Keraghat after his attempts to treat his wife in local and other hospitals turned futile. He has further claimed that the said pastor has been visiting his premises to hold special prayers to treat his wife for around two months.
Cases of illegal Conversion
It is to be noted that the State of Chhattisgarh has been grabbing headlines for all the wrong reasons pertaining to cases of illegal conversion promoted by missionaries for years, most of these cases includes conversion on the pretext of lure, money, treatment, job and education. The persistent emergence of these cases have also lead to wide scale protests by the local community against the augmenting menace of illegal conversion.
Off late, the tribal-dominated State has also witnessed a number of protest rallies with a demand to conduct a nationwide de-listing exercise to identify people from the tribal community who have converted and embraced any other religion other than those originated in Bharat.
The demand of delisting in the State gained momentum after numerous reports pertaining to converted member of the tribal (Janjati/ Vanvasi) community carrying a Scheduled Tribes (ST) certificate to continue availing the benefits of reservation reserved exclusively for the STs surfaced from various corners of the State.
Additionally, the recurrence of cases pertaining to illegal conversion from separate regions of the state have also led to violent altercation between the newly converts and the local Vanvasi community on a number of occasions. Further, the two community have also got indulged in violent clashes over issues such as perseverance of age-old Vanvasi culture and burials of the dead ones.
The growing trend of these altercation and persistent protest by the Janjatiye community had also led the issue of illegal conversion to take the central stage during the election campaign in the recently concluded Chhattisgarh State assembly election.
Recently a number of ministers including the Deputy Chief Minister Arun sao has also indicated that the incumbent State government is mulling over the possibilities of enacting a stringent law against illegal conversion.
Additionally, the Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai on a number of occasions has also asserted that the tribal dominated state of Chhattisgarh has been a victim of illegal conversion since long and his government will leave no stone unturned in order to get rid of the problem once and for all.
