Amid a storm over the arrest of two Kerala nuns on allegations of forcible conversion and trafficking in Chhattisgarh, one of the women they are accused of targeting has told The Indian Express that she was coerced to give an adverse statement against them.
The nuns, Preeti Marry and Vandana Francis, and another person, Sukhman Mandavi, were arrested last Friday at the Durg railway station in Chhattisgarh. The FIR, registered under sections of the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, was based on a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal worker, who alleged that the accused forcibly converted three women from Narayanpur and were attempting to traffic them.
But one of the three Narayanpur women told The Indian Express that she was threatened and assaulted by Jyoti Sharma, a woman associated with a right-wing outfit, to change her statement, and the police based their FIR on what members of the Bajrang Dal told them.
When contacted, Rishi Mishra, the Bajrang Dal’s Chhattisgarh coordinator, told The Indian Express, “A rickshaw driver associated with the Bajrang Dal overheard the conversation between the nuns and the women and suspected they were being trafficked, after which our workers reached the spot and gave a complaint to the GRP.” Jyoti Sharma, he said, is not from the Bajrang Dal but from the Durga Vahini Matrushakti.
Sharma, when contacted, described herself as a Hindutvawadi who turns up “wherever Hindutva needs saving”.
Chhattisgarh DGP Arun Kumar Gautam declined to comment on the Narayanpur woman’s allegations, saying, “Matter is sub judice.”
The 21-year-old woman, a tribal, reached her home in Narayanpur district on Wednesday after spending five days in a shelter home in Durg. “Please release all three (arrested accused), they are innocent,” she said while speaking to The Indian Express on the phone.
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She said she had gone to Durg railway station on Friday to travel with the nuns of her own will, and with her parents’ consent. She alleged that Sharma assaulted her, and the Government Railway Police (GRP) in Durg did not record her statement. Instead, she alleged, the police based the First Information Report on a statement given by Bajrang Dal members.
The woman said she lives with her parents and four sisters, and earns Rs 250 a day as a daily wager. She said she learnt of a job from one of the arrested accused, Mandavi, who goes to the same church and is like a brother to her.
The woman said, “I used to cycle for nine kilometres every day for work. I have studied up to class 10. Mandavi offered me a job as a cook for the nuns and to look after patients (at a hospital in Agra). They promised Rs 10,000 apart from food, clothes and shelter. I was happy.”
On the day of the arrest, the woman said she and two other women from Orcha in Narayanpur reached the Durg railway station around 6 am. They were accompanied by Mandavi. Around 9 am, the nuns, whom she had never met, arrived. Shortly after, a Bajrang Dal worker and the GRP reached the scene and started questioning them, she alleged.
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“They took us to the railway police station. We were scolded a lot, and Jyoti Sharma hit me twice on the face. She said that if you do not follow what we say, we will put your siblings in jail and assault them. They wanted us to say that we were brought here forcibly. I told Sharma that I have come of my own will and have the consent of my parents. I said this inside the police station in the presence of two to three policemen,” she claimed.
Sharma, when contacted, said, “I did not touch any one of them. When I reached, they were already inside the police station. Will the police allow me to touch them? I am hearing this allegation for the first time; earlier, they were saying I beat a nun, which is false.”
Asked how she learnt of the women at the railway station, Sharma said, “One of the workers called me and said one of the women on platform number 1 was crying and wanted to go home. He called me and alerted me. I told him to take them to Durg GRP.”
The Narayanpur woman said, “I had met the nuns for the first time. When we were being assaulted, one of the nuns said, ‘do not worry, I am here with you.’ She told the person beating us, ‘hit us, but not them’.”
