A case of illegal religious conversion came to light in Bilaspur, Chhattisgarh, on Sunday (16th November) when some Hindu women and children were found attending a Christian prayer inside a house in Chilhati village in the Sarkanda police station area.
On receiving the information about the Christian prayer meet, some members of a Hindu organisation reached there with a loudspeaker and alerted people. They made announcements on the loudspeaker and warned the Hindus participating in the Christian prayers that they were being lured and brainwashed into abandoning their religion by those who hate it. The members of the Hindu organisation disrupted the prayer session, and the police were called, who stopped the prayer meeting.
Kanhaiya Sahu, a member of the Hindu organisation, said that he received information that some Hindus were being lured to convert to Christianity in a house located on the Shandi Mandir road in the village. Based on the information, he submitted a complaint to the Station House Officer. The complaint stated that pastor Vishnu Kosaria, Prateek Goyal and several others were organising a Christian prayer meeting. An FIR has been filed by the police based on the complaint.
When the members of the Hindu organisation reached there on Sunday, the Christian prayer was being organised. They said that the prayer meeting was being organised illegally to mislead gullible Hindus. They urged the local administration to take action against the organisers.
Cases of religious conversion are on the rise in the state. Around 38 cases of religious conversion were reportedly registered in areas, including Civil Lines, Sarkanda, Koni, Sakri, Torwa, Masturi, Sipat, and Pachpedi over the last six months. Earlier, on 12th November, 2 separate cases of religious conversion were lodged in the Sarkanda and the Pachpedi police station areas.
Some Hindu organisations accused a driver of the South Eastern Coalfields Limited (SECL) of luring people to convert at a Christian prayer meeting held in a house in the Vasant Vihar colony of the Sarkanda police station area. In the conversion case in Kukurdi Khurd village in the Pachpedi police station area, some Hindu women and children were being converted to Christianity.
The number of Christians has increased at an alarming rate in various villages in different districts in Chhattisgarh. The increased number of Christians in several villages of Bastar and Narayanpur districts has caused a conflict regarding the burial of dead bodies of Christians. Currently, churchyards are being used for burials as local Hindu organisations are reportedly opposing the burial of dead bodies of Christian converts in the cremation grounds of the villages.
