New Delhi: A court in Uttar Pradesh has sentenced a South-Indian-origin couple to five years in prison for trying to induce Hindu Dalits to convert to Christianity. The criminal case was lodged in 2023 on the complaint of an office-bearer of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
Notably, the special court in Ambedkar Nagar convicted the couple despite the Allahabad high court’s ruling 16 months ago that the BJP leader, on whose compliant the FIR was lodged, was not an aggrieved person in the case and, therefore, was not a competent person to lodge a complaint under UP’s anti-conversion law.
The Wire has a copy of the Ambedkar Nagar court’s 22-page verdict.
On January 22, Ram Vilas Singh, special judge SC/ST Act, sentenced Jose Papachen and his wife Sheeja to five years in prison and fined them Rs 25,000 each after convicting them under Section 5 (1) of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.
Judge Singh held the couple guilty of inducing poverty-struck Dalits in Shahpur Firoz village in Ambedkar Nagar in eastern UP to “mass” convert them from Hindu to Christian. The court said the couple used to impart lessons from the Bible, propagate about Jesus Christ, distribute religious books, organise bhandaras (feasts) on Christmas and offer money and other allurements to the Dalits and ask them to follow Jesus in bid to convert them.
Also read: A Dalit Mechanic in UP Spent 15 Months Fighting a False ‘Conversion’ FIR – and Won
Papachen and Sheeja, who live in Madhya Pradesh and are originally from Kerala, could not explain to the court why they were visiting the village.
The FIR was lodged in January 2023 at Jalalpur police station after BJP district secretary Chandrika Prasad alleged that Papachen and Sheeja had been visiting a Dalit basti in Shahpur Firoz; they would visit the house of Viphla, a Dalit woman, where they offered allurements to convert the Dalit villagers who would gather there. Prasad himself belongs to a Dalit community.
The couple would allegedly distribute Christian books, read the Bible and deliver sermons about the life of Jesus. A few days before the FIR was lodged against them, the couple had distributed food and sweets to local villagers and cut a cake to celebrate Christmas.
Apart from the charge of unlawful conversion, the couple was also booked under the The Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe (Prevention of Atrocities) Act, 1989.
Villagers’ statements
While convicting them, judge Singh took into consideration the statements of at least six Dalit women, all of them illiterate, the BJP office-bearer Prasad, a local resident Lav Kush and three policemen.
Viphla, in her statement to the court, said that Papachen and Sheeja would visit her house and impart “good education” to her and her family.
They gave her books from a local church. “They would come to my house and teach me and my neighbours good things and would ask us to not drink liquor or get into fights,” Viphla said.
She said that she would gather people from her neighbourhood when the couple would come to her house. Papachen and Sheeja would read the Bible to them, speak about Jesus and ask them to follow him, she said.
Another Dalit woman, Manju, said in her testimony that she would attend the prayers at Viphla’s house on her invitation. She said that Papachen and Sheeja would come there to propagate Christianity and ask the villagers to pray to Jesus.
Manju, however, added that the couple would ask the villagers to focus on education and live amicably, and would provide them books and copies free of cost. The couple would ask the locals to follow Jesus Christ and Christianity, said Manju, who claimed to have informed about the matter to the BJP district secretary Prasad on phone.
Almost all the witnesses produced by the prosecution acknowledged that the couple would impart good lessons to them and their children.
However, the judge underlined the portions of their statements where they said that the couple would ask them to follow Jesus and pray to him.
According to Section 2 of UP’s anti-conversion law, allurement means or includes offer of any temptation in the form of any gift, easy money, gratification, material benefit, either in cash or kind, employment, free education in reputed school by any religious body, better lifestyle or divine displeasure.
Suramani, another villager, said that the couple would provide “good knowledge” to her children and teach them. She also said that they would tell the villagers that Jesus is parmeshwar or almighty.
Roshni said that the couple gifted her a photo calendar of Jesus and would ask her to follow the Christian faith.
Only one witness, Anjani, outrightly accused the couple of offering them allurements and money to convert them to Christianity. She said the couple would teach her children and would ask her to follow Jesus and pray to him, referring to Jesus as their bhagwan (god).
“We are illiterate, so they would take advantage of this and try to coax us to follow Christianity,” she said.
Judge Singh acquitted Papachen and Sheeja of the second charge of hurling casteist abuses at the alleged victims of conversion.
Allahabad high court order
On September 6, 2023, Justice Shamim Ahmed of the Allahabad high court had set aside a lower court’s order and granted bail to Papachen and Sheeja. Justice Ahmed had noted that providing good teachings, distributing Holy Bible books, encouraging children to get education, organising assembly of villagers, bhandara, instructing the villagers not to get into altercations and to not consume liquor did not amount to allurement.
Justice Ahmed had also ruled that the FIR was not lodged by a competent person.
Section 4 of the 2021 Act says that “any aggrieved person, his or her parents, brother, sister or any other person related to him or her by blood, marriage or adoption” would be considered competent to lodge an FIR under it.
Since BJP leader Chandrika Prasad was none of these, he was not authorised to lodge a complaint under the law, the court ruled.
“The words ‘any aggrieved person’ at the very start of the said section can be interpreted to mean any person, especially since there is no provision under the I.P.C. or Cr.P.C., which bars or prohibits any person from lodging a first information report regarding cognizable offence. However, the words ‘any aggrieved person’ is qualified by the subsequent categories and the words his, her parents, brother, sisters or blood relations by marriage and adoption included.
Therefore, the words ‘any aggrieved person’, if taken by themselves, are extremely wide. The scope of the said term is completely whittled down by subsequent categories and therefore, it has to be said that any aggrieved person would be a person but is personally aggrieved by his or her fraudulent conversion be it an individual or in a mass conversion ceremony,” Justice Ahmed had said.
