Lucknow: Four persons, including a woman, were arrested for allegedly forced conversion of Hindus to Christianity in Mau and Jhansi districts on Sunday.
The first incident was reported from Premnagar police station area of Jhansi where pastor Abhishek Kumar and his aide Poonam Chaudhary allegedly lured a group of 40-50 underprivileged people, mainly women, with jobs and other benefits for converting them to Christianity. According to police sources, the conversion racket was run in the garb of a coaching institute. They were given religious sermons along with booklets and pamphlets while persuading them to convert, the police sources said.
Circle officer Sneha Tiwari said “One Vinod Awasthi, a member of Bajrang Dal, informed UP 112 about forced conversion by a pastor. A police team rushed to the spot and found the allegations prima facie true, following which, Abhishek and Poonam were held.” However, two others managed to escape.
In the second incident reported from Guruma village of Rampur police station in Mau, pastor Harbansh Kumar alias Master and his aide Sunil were found luring women to convert them to Christianity.
Mau superintendent of police Avinash Pandey said that after getting information from one Atul Rai about forced conversion taking place at a sewing machine training centre run at the residence of one Arvind Kumar in Guruma village, a police team rushed to the spot. “We recovered religious books and Christian literature from the spot. The pastor, who was trying to convert the women to Christianity by offering them several benefits, was arrested along with his aide,” said SHO, Rampur, Ram Bahadur Prasad.
All the four were arrested under charges of the UP Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, the police added.
