Ranchi: Locals of Sonehara village under the Dandi police station limits of Garhwa district have thwarted a plot of illegal conversion after they caught an individual red handed inciting a gathering of people for conversion alongside distributing copies of bible on Sunday, September 01.
Vikas Mehra, a resident of the neighboring, Parva Mod area has called a meeting of the locals in Sonehara village where he was inciting the gathering for conversion. However, Mehra was soon confronted by a section of other villagers who surprisingly appeared on the scene and caught him red handed, leading to his detention.
The said individual was reportedly offering free rice bags, financial assistance and other facilities to those willing to change their religion. He also made lewd remarks on the Sanatan Dharma while praising the Jesus Christ at the same time, disclosed the residents who later submitted a complaint against Mehra.
However, his efforts towards inciting people to convert through inducement and fallacy soon proved to be futile after a section of villager upon learning about his sinister design barged into the place of gathering and caught him.
A formal complaint against the accused in regard to his unlawful activities was lodged by some local Hindu activists in Dandai police station, demanding strict action against him. The police have reportedly launched a probe into the matter.
गढ़वा में फिर सामने आया जबरन धर्मांतरण का मामला।
ग्रामीणों ने बाइबल बांटते एक शख्स को पकड़ पुलिस के हवाले किया। pic.twitter.com/GI1fjjPtf0
— News18 Jharkhand (@News18Jharkhand) September 3, 2024
According to the information received, similar gatherings of people aimed at conversion was going on in the area for long and it was only this time that a section of villagers, critical to such activities aimed at conversion have discovered and foiled it.
Notably, majority of those who have been misled towards attending such meetings often has a poor economical background making them vulnerable target for missionaries who lure them into conversion on pretext of providing financial help and other facilities. In some cases, the targeted audience are also misled by spreading fallacy about the Sanatan Dharma.
Speaking to the media on the incident, one of the Hindu activists said that “Conversion activities are being promoted here by insulting the Hindu society, passing inappropriate comments on our god, goddesses along creating rift within the society by stressing on caste hatred. Further inducement tactics are also being used to convert innocent people”.
It must be noted that cases linked to illegal conversion activities have been keep emerging from separate regions of the state of Jharkhand which also has a significant population of tribals, a community affected heavily by the augmenting menace of illegal conversion promoted by certain groups.
Significantly, the issue has also been highlighted evidently in a public litigation filed recently before the Jharkhand high court in which the petitioner has claimed that innocent locals have been misled to attend Changai Sabha (A religious gathering associated with Christian community) which tend to misled them in embracing other religion.
The petition has been filed amidst startling revelations made by a prominent media outlet who in its report has claimed that rampant conversion has been taking place in specific pockets of states such as Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Odisha and Jharkhand under “Project Joshua”, an America based research initiative focused primarily on collecting extensive data about the ethnic and religious groups.
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