Six Dalits, who had embraced Christianity, were arrested on charges of rioting and acts to outrage religious feelings after a Hindu Jagran Manch member, Arvind Kumar Gupta, filed a complaint accusing them of converting Dalits to Christianity at Sikandarpur Vaish police station of Kasganj.
The police, however, said that there was no evidence to suggest that the group of men was involved in religious conversion and said that the charges were being probed.
As per reports, Shrinivas, Kuldeep, Rahul Kumar, Shiv Kumar, Durgesh and Kishan, all in the 30 to 50 year age bracket, are Dalits who converted to Christianity. On Sunday, they visited Gangpur village to meet a friend Rampal, when five of them were arrested on the basis of Gupta’s complaint who claimed that he saw them distributing money and religious literature among the villagers. One of the accused Kishan, however, managed to evade arrest by slipping away from the scene.
While the complainant Gupta wanted them to be charged under UP Prohibition of Unlawful Religious Conversion Ordinance, 2020 which bans 'forced' conversions, CO (City) Kasganj, Deep Kumar Pant, said, “As of now, the police had found no evidence to suggest that these men were preachers or they were trying to convert villagers through allurement or coercion. The six men were having food at a friend’s place when they were nabbed. They were however booked for other charges listed in Gupta's complaint -- rioting, assault, intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of peace, criminal intimidation, mischief and deliberate and malicious act to outrage religious feelings.
About the charge of ‘malicious act to outrage religious feelings’, the police said that “some abusive and objectionable” content about Hindu deities was found in a page of a diary found inside the van in which the six men drove to Gangpur. He said on being quizzed about the literature recovered from their vehicle, they were unable to provide any plausible explanation. The accused were sent to jail and further investigations were on in this regard.