The Uttar Pradesh Police on Sunday, 26th January arrested an Odisha-based missionary couple for attempting to convert Hindus to Christianity. The accused persons identified as Samrendra Singh and his wife Sushmita Singh had been practising forceful religious conversion in the Bindki Kotwali area of Fatehpur district of Uttar Pradesh.
As per the local reports, the police took action against the accused based on the inputs provided by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal members. As per the members, the conversion was happening in the Chhota Lalpur village at around 1 pm on Sunday, 26th January afternoon.
The members also stated that the couple had arrived in the village just 10 days ago and had taken a premise on rent from Ajay Kumar in Paigabar Muhalla for Rs 6,500. “The sole purpose of the arrival of this couple into the village was religious conversion,” the police were informed.
Based on the information provided by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad city president Rajesh Singh and Bajrang Dal city convenor Vimlesh Kumar Bajpai, Kotwali in-charge Inspector Sunil Kumar Singh along with the police force immediately reached the spot. During the investigation, it was found that the accused couple were residents of Odisha and had been practising religious conversion on poor tribals using various lures.
The accused persons lured the victims with money, food grains, and also good women to marry. They were also conducting ‘healing camps’ with the promise of freedom from disease and poverty. It has come to the fore that the accused couple was being funded by an unidentified source to practice religious conversion. The police registered a case of conversion by taking both of them into immediate custody.
During interrogation, the police learned that the accused persons were associated with a church located in Kanpur. The police also recovered several incriminating materials used for conversion from the accused persons. One of the accused persons named in the FIR is Om Prakash, who probably assisted the primary accused couple in forcefully converting people. However, Om Prakash managed to flee from the spot.
The police have at present arrested the accused couple and are making all the efforts to arrest the absconding accused.
Several prominent activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal were present on the spot during the incident, including Rajesh Singh, Arvind Bhartiya, Sajal Sharma, Abhay Soni, Aniket Gupta, Harshit Dwivedi, Akhilesh Yadav, Anil Dubey and Piyush Pandey. Police said that constitutional action had been initiated against the accused couple.
