Days after allegations of sexual harassment surfaced against two of its preachers of Scripture Union, the accused Sam Jaisundar has claimed that his messages were ‘misread’ by his minor students, reports New Indian Express.
Speaking to the New Indian Express, Sam Jaisundar, who is now accused of sending inappropriate messages to minor students, stated that his intentions in the chat conversations with the girls were “not malicious”.
The accused Sam, without disputing the authenticity of the screenshots, acknowledged that he had engaged in conversations with students and defended his actions by claiming that his messages were ‘misread’.
“My intentions were not malicious. Some of my messages were misread,” said Sam Jaisundar.
The Christian organisation has now filed police complaint against Sam and another accused Reuben Clement.
Christian preacher sent inappropriate messages to minor students
Recently, Christian evangelical organisation ‘Scripture Union’ (SU) employees Sam Jaisunder and Reuben Clement were accused of sending inappropriate messages to underage girls in schools. It was found that Jaisunder would force minor students to appear on video calls and even ask them to meet alone while expressing a desire to ‘cuddle’ them.
Flagging the sexual harrasment, a twitter user Joel Giftson had accused ‘Scripture Union’ of being the ‘most paedophilic organisation’ and had stated that this inappropriate messaging by Jaisunder has been going on since at least 2016.
https://twitter.com/JoelGiftson17/status/1312739590805962753?ref_src=twsrc%5EtfwComplaint registered against Sam Jaisunder and other accused
Meanwhile, the Christian missionary group ‘Scripture Union’ on Tuesday has also registered a police complaint against the two preachers in Chennai.
Following the allegations, the board members of Scripture Union had taken the complaints into cognizance and had decided to take stringent action against him. Subsequently, the preacher was suspended on Monday.
Jaisundar, who has worked with SU since 2006, regularly visited schools across Tamil Nadu and carried out Vacation Bible School and summer camps for Bible studies.
The Christian organisation had also admitted that it was made aware of the alleged misbehaviour of its preacher Samual Jaisundar at least two months ago when parents of a 19-year-old made an oral complaint against him. However, the Christian organisation had failed to take any action agains the preacher.
Started in 1867, Scripture Union is an international Christian evangelical organisation which works closely with schools to get children to read the Bible.