This is the fourth article in a series of reports on people who won their legal battles after being falsely charged under the anti-conversion laws brought in by BJP governments in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and Jharkhand. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
New Delhi: Satish Verma had barely completed a year of his undergraduate degree course in dental surgery when he decided to give up studies for good and dedicate his life to the service of Jesus Christ. His ‘calling’ came one evening in January 2020, when he felt uneasy and developed a strange headache while sitting on a bench near a wheat farm in his village in Madhya Pradesh.
A group of tribal labourers, who were working nearby, came to his rescue. “I was attacked by a dusht aatma (evil spirit). These tribal workers were believers in Jesus and they made me feel better with their prayers,” said Verma. The 27-year-old former medical student, who calls himself a preacher, lives in Barwani, an economically disadvantaged district in south-west MP. Almost one-fourth of Barwani’s population comes from tribal communities.
Illustration: Pariplab Chakraborty.
Verma’s initial fascination towards Jesus gradually turned into a full-time dedication as he started drifting away from the Hindu religion he was born into. He belongs to the Balai community, a Hindu Dalit caste. After coming in touch with a local church, he started conducting his own prayer sessions. Within six months of his new path, his congregations grew from just four people to 240 in attendance.
However, his association with Christian beliefs and preaching in tribal villages in Barwani was met with disapproval from some who accused him of trying to spread Christianity in the area. Verma started receiving threats from Hindutva-leaning people for conducting prayer sessions.
In October 2023, Verma was booked under the Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled Madhya Pradesh’s anti-conversion law after a tribal man, Kamal Singh, a driver by profession, accused him of trying to force and lure him into converting from Hinduism to Christianity.
Verma maintains his Dalit Hindu identity on paper, although he has fully surrendered himself to Christ and for the last seven years has stopped celebrating all kinds of Hindu festivals. In the letterhead of a little church founded by him in Dewada village in Barwani, he addresses himself as “Prophet”.
Prior to the FIR lodged against him, Verma had submitted several complaints to the police against the complainant Singh, who allegedly threatened him whenever Verma held prayer meetings in his village. Singh belongs to the Bhilala tribal community.
The local administration had also granted Verma two security guards on his request after he expressed a threat to his life from Singh and his associates, who had allegedly been threatening him for the past few months.
Eventually, in February 2024, a local court in Barwani discharged Verma from the unlawful conversion case.
This is how Verma and his friend Durga Chouhan*, a farm labourer from the Bhilala tribal community, got implicated in a false conversion case by a Bhilala driver allegedly out of vindictiveness.
A violent disruption
Originally from Khargone, Verma moved to Thikri town in neighbouring Barwani district and started living there after he developed faith in Christ in 2020, during the COVID-19 first wave. He adopted sevakai (service) as a full-time operation, and started touring people’s homes, holding aradhna (prayer) and healing sessions.
In village Dewada, where Kamal Singh and Chouhan both live, Verma set up a church in a kutcha house. He called it the Holy Fire Church and got it registered. Chauhan, whose family is Christian, managed the church, while Verma was its founder.
On Sunday, October 1, 2023, the day of the incident, the duo had set up a tent in Chauhan’s father’s farm to organise a mass prayer service. More than a dozen men and women from Dewada and neighbouring villages of Rupkheda and Magarkhedi turned up. They were part of a tiny association formed by Verma.
Also read: A Birthday Party, a Legal Battle and an Acquittal: The Story of a False Conversion Case
Trouble started around 12:30 pm when Kamal Singh, along with his uncle Lal Singh and another person, also named Lal Singh, appeared at the meeting site quite agitated. Singh, who had threatened Verma in the past too, started abusing him and accused him of trying to convert people into Christianity.
“’Why do you come to our village when we have asked you to not come!’ he told me,” said Verma later, in a complaint to the police.
Led by Kamal Singh, they started assaulting Verma. He alleged that Kamal Singh, who was carrying a plastic pipe, hit him on the right side and the back of his head, causing it to bleed. Verma later received treatment for his injuries in a hospital.
Kamal Singh’s associates Santosh and Deepak also joined the assault, kicking and punching Verma. Even the two police guards he had been provided by the administration for his safety during such meetings could not prevent the attack, said Verma.
Case against case
After the assault, Verma lodged a complaint with the police against Kamal Singh, Deepak Singh and three others, all named Santosh Bhilala.
The five persons were booked for voluntarily causing hurt, performing an obscene act or singing an obscene song in a public place, and intentional insults meant to provoke a breach of the peace. The FIR was registered at 3:44 pm. The timing is relevant, because later in the evening at 6:26 pm, Kamal Singh got an FIR lodged against Verma and Chauhan alleging that the two men tried to force him to convert to Christianity when he had gone to the field along with his uncle on Verma’s invitation.
Verma and Chauhan were booked under Sections 3 and 5 of the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act, 2021. The state was one of the earliest to enact a law against conversions back in 1968. In December 2020, the BJP government in the state introduced a new law against conversions, replacing the 1968 law, following in the footsteps of the Yogi Adityanath government in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.
Throughout the case, Verma and Chauhan evaded arrest. Their anticipatory bail was rejected by a Barwani court but on November 29, 2023, the Madhya Pradesh high court granted them the relief against arrest.
During the hearing, Verma informed the high court that prior to the incident of October 1, he had made several complaints against Kamal Singh and his associates. Kamal Singh had lodged a cross FIR against the duo because Verma had filed a complaint against him for allegedly assaulting him, Verma said.
In his police complaint, Verma said that he had complained to the Superintendent of Police of Barwani on January 1, 2023 about alleged death threats he was receiving from Kamal Singh but no action was taken. Then on May 27, he again complained to the Thikri police station, but no action was taken then either.
In his police complaint against Verma and Chauhan, Kamal Singh alleged that the duo had been actively preaching Christianity in his village for the past two years.
He alleged that they asked him to give up the Hindu religion and become a Christian. If he did so, they promised him that he would get a lot of benefits, and all his ailments and troubles would vanish.
Less than a month before the October 2023 incident, Verma had written to the Barwani district police chief requesting police protection every Sunday from 10 am to 3 pm, so that he could hold his meetings peacefully.
Verma says that Chouhan’s family had allowed him space and logistics to operate in the village. There, Verma had come in touch with Kamal Singh’s family. Verma remembers seeing his ailing mother lying on a cot. Kamal Singh’s wife was under the influence of “evil spirits”, said Verma.
He says that he prayed for them both, helping them heal. “I visited them on three Sundays,” he said. Verma felt that he was helping the family but Kamal Singh did not approve. He would allegedly disrupt Verma’s meetings and even try to prevent his vehicle from entering the village.
Verma says that prior to the unlawful conversion case, attempts were made to falsely implicate him in a suicide case, with the allegation that a person who attended his meetings went into depression and took their own life. Attempts were also made to implicate him in a case of sexual harassment, he claims. Verma says that his detractors alleged that he would indecently touch women when they sat in prayer with their eyes closed.
Verma rubbished all the allegations against him, including the charges of unlawful conversion. “It was a fake allegation. It was a fabricated story. I was only going there for prayers,” he said.
No written complaint
Verma filed a discharge application in the unlawful conversion case. He argued that there was no mention in the police FIR that a victim had in a written complaint demanded action in the case, as mandated by Section 4 of the Madhya Pradesh law. Despite this, the police lodged a case based on “false grounds”, he contended.
Section 4 of the law says that no police officer can inquire or investigate except upon a written complaint of a person converted in contravention of Section 3 or his parents or siblings or with the leave of the court by any other person who is related by blood, marriage or adoption, guardianship or custodianship, as may be applicable.
Also read: 834 Attacks on Christians in India in 2024, 100 More Than 2023: Rights Group
Section 3 of the law states that no person shall convert or attempt to convert, either directly or otherwise, any other person by use of misrepresentation, allurement, use of threat or force, undue influence, coercion or marriage or by any other fraudulent means. Unlawfully converting a tribal person attracts a punishment of a minimum of two years in jail which could be extended to 10 years. Since Kamal Singh was a tribal, Verma was afraid of the worst-case scenario.
But the court ruled in his favour.
Additional sessions judge Barwani Sandhya Manoj Srivastava observed that the FIR had been lodged on a complaint by Kamal Singh but he had not submitted a written complaint against Verma. The FIR was not registered on the basis of a written complaint as mandated by Section 4 of the 2021 law, she ruled. “There is no basis to frame charges under Sections 3 and 5 of the 2021 Act,” said Judge Srivastava, as she accepted Verma’s discharge application.
Verma says that even after he got discharged from the case, he continues to be harassed and feels intimidated. But he is relieved that the unlawful conversion case is over. He believes there is a divine force that is protecting him from all kinds of harm. “My holy spirit saved me,” he said.
*Name changed to protect the victim’s anonymity.
