How the False Conversion Case Against This Dalit Labourer Fell Apart

This is the second 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. Read the first article here.

New Delhi: Hari Shankar* couldn’t look past the absurdity of the matter: a retired Dalit construction labourer who could barely make ends meet was accused of casually offering thousands of rupees in cash to poor Hindus if they agreed to convert to Christianity.

“I live in a madaiya (basic hut). What can I lure people with? If I had Rs 30,000 to spare, wouldn’t I use it to change my own life first, before distributing it to others?” asked Shankar wryly.

Shankar lives in a tiny one-room shack in Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh. To make more living space, he has erected a tin-roof shed in the adjoining area. The shed does not have proper walls; plastic sheets and bedsheets form a makeshift enclosure. The floor of a part of the shed also serves as a kitchen.

In 2021, 60-year-old Shankar was booked under The Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021 on the charge of converting poor Hindus in a locality in Azamgarh to Christianity by offering them money and promising to free them from the grip of ‘evil spirits’.

In addition to that, he faced the allegation of hurting religious sentiments by insulting Hindu goddesses and deities. The action against him was taken on the complaint of a right-wing activist linked to the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.

After a three-year-long legal battle, a court in Azamgarh in September 2024 acquitted him of the charge of unlawful conversion. The court found the charge to be dubious and said that the investigation by the police was riddled with illegalities and contradictions.

The judge, however, held Shankar guilty of hurting religious sentiments. Shankar was out on bail after having spent six months in prison when the 19-page verdict was delivered.

Considering his age and rural social background, the court decided against sending him back to prison and ordered his release on probation for a year.

Shankar’s conviction under Indian Penal Code Sections 298 (deliberately hurting someone’s religious feelings) and 504 (intentional insults that provoke others to break public peace) tainted his legal record in the autumn of his life but in the larger scheme of things, he stood vindicated. The main accusation of unlawful conversion was proven to be false.

“Truth prevailed. Talking about someone (Jesus Christ) does not amount to conversion. And the allegation of talking ill of Hindu deities was also baseless. All lies,” said Shankar.

Changing allegations

The criminal case against him was lodged on August 31, 2021, nine months after the Yogi Adityanath-led Bharatiya Janata Party government in Uttar Pradesh armed itself with a stringent new law that made religious conversion a non-bailable offence inviting up to 10 years in prison if found to be effected for marriage or through misrepresentation, force, undue influence, coercion, allurement or other allegedly fraudulent means. The vagueness of the offence under the law blurred the lines between what could be deemed as lawful conversion and what was considered illegal. These features opened doors for vigilante groups as well as the police to harass people.

Last year, the government amended the law to make it even more oppressive by increasing the maximum punishment from 10 years to life imprisonment, further empowering vigilante groups by allowing “any person” to file a complaint, and making the process of securing bail even more difficult.

Ever since the law came into force late in 2020, it has become routine for right-wing activists linked to the ruling saffron ideology to lodge FIRs against Muslims as well as “lower”-caste Hindus perceived to be practicing Christian traditions or deviating from traditional Hinduism. Most of these cases are based on general allegations and flimsy evidence, as part of a concerted strategy to harass individuals and groups from the minority and marginalised communities.

Shankar’s was a typical case.

The FIR against him was lodged on the complaint of one Jittu Sonkar, a fruit seller and right-wing activist from Azamgarh associated with several arms of the Sangh parivar. Sonkar, a Dalit like Shankar, alleged that an unidentified person had been visiting his locality Sarai Mandraj for three months and was promising people that he would “remove the obstacles of ghosts and spirits” from their lives. The man, whom Sonkar later identified as Shankar, was allegedly also active in a Dalit basti in the neighbouring locality of Kartalpur where he was “converting” people to Christianity by enrapturing them with his “illusions” and through other allurements.

Also read: A Dalit Mechanic in UP Spent 15 Months Fighting a False ‘Conversion’ FIR – and Won

Sonkar alleged that on August 31, 2021 – a Tuesday – at around 10 am, he found Shankar distributing Bibles and other Christian religious books to people in his locality. Shankar was also using “obscene” language to insult Hindu deities and goddesses, alleged Sonkar. When the locals objected to his language, Sonkar further alleged in his complaint, Shankar offered each of them an “allurement” of Rs 500 and mentioned that if they accepted Christianity, “Prabhu Ishu” (Jesus) would rid them of all their “suffering and penury”.

Later, while testifying in a trial court, Sonkar made a new allegation that Shankar had offered him Rs 30,000 to convert to Christianity. He claimed that Shankar used to convert people at the house of a local resident, Nirmala Devi. Sonkar said Shankar and Nirmal Devi called him to the house so that they could exorcise him. When he reached the house, the duo was already engaged in prayers and were converting several women to Christianity, he alleged. They offered him Rs 30,000 to accept Christianity but when he objected and rejected their money, they abused him with casteist slurs related to his Khatik background, Sonkar alleged. Khatik is Dalit sub-caste in Uttar Pradesh.

A life built on faith

Shankar has a different memory of the day. But to accurately grasp the circumstances behind the allegations against him, it is important to take into account his background. Shankar belongs to the Chamar Dalit community Over the last two decades, especially after his marriage, he had started committing himself to Jesus Christ, although he did not formally change his religion. He was exposed to the faith and the message of Jesus after coming in touch with two pastors.

When he was not pushing bricks, sand, stones or cement on trolleys at construction sites, he was engaged in ‘seva’ (selfless acts in the cause of faith) and prayer services for Jesus. Superstition and belief in unscientific methods of cure for ailments and distress are an inextricable element of this system of faith-based healing.

Many believers have over the years started their own prayer centres dedicated to Jesus in the region and even hold large events. But some, like Shankar, who lack the resources, prefer to provide home services and convene smaller sessions.  People, whether aggrieved by ailments, financial distress or ‘evil’ spirits, would invite Shankar to conduct such prayers and healing sessions in the privacy of their homes. A part of his work involved travelling from Varanasi to Azamgarh, a more than two-hour journey he often made on a motorcycle.

On August 31, 2021, Shankar said he had gone to Nirmala Devi’s house in Azamgarh to conduct a prayer for a 15-year-old girl who had been “troubled by evil forces” for the last four years. Word has spread how Shankar had earlier ‘cured’ a woman who was ‘possessed by evil spirits’ and Nirmala Devi looked towards him for relief.  Shankar claimed that many families had stopped going to the events and satsangs of other Hindu spiritual gurus, and instead turned to Kaleeshias or Christian prayer centres, after they came in touch with him. This had annoyed the Hindutva elements in the region, he said.  “We only go there to pray. Parmeshwar (supreme being) does the rest,” said Shankar, when I asked him to explain how he rid people of their afflictions.

Shankar carried a small donation box to such events. Since he usually visited poor households, the donations were nominal. On the day of the incident, Shankar was at Nirmala Devi’s residence when two strangers appeared there unannounced and walked in. Meanwhile, their associates waited outside. “One of those men started turning the pages of a Bible and said that he wanted to join the prayers. The second person started shooting a video of us. They left after a couple of minutes but soon returned with a larger group of people from a Hindu organisation and accused me of conversion,” Shankar said.

Shankar usually did his prayer services on Tuesdays. And on days when he was not available, his son Ujjwal, who works in a photo design store, would fill in. “My father was targeted. People like Jittu Sonkar would come to his meetings and carefully observe things. These people would often taunt us and say, ‘If you are a Hindu, why do you believe in Christ? If you want to worship Christ, adopt a Christian name and give up reservation,’” said Ujjwal. He believes that Hindutva elements mostly harass people from Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribe communities with such laws. “It’s mostly the lower caste people who are attracted towards Christianity,” said Ujjwal.

An unconvincing story

The Adityanath government-backed prosecution team produced four witnesses against Shankar: Sonkar himself; a locally-renowned dermatologist and office-bearer of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Parijat Barnwal; Sonkar’s friend Rajan Chaubey; and the investigating officer of the case, sub-inspector Shivkumar Kushwaha.

The police claimed to have recovered 12 religious texts, including a book of Bhojpuri devotional songs about Christ, copies of the Bible and some other documents, and a single Rs 100 note from Shankar.

During the trial, Shankar pointed out that the only two public witnesses in the case were Sonkar’s friends. One of them, Rajan Chaubey, was the person who actually drafted the FIR which was dictated to him by Sonkar. The trial judge took note of this and ruled the FIR to be “suspicious” as he found several contradictions in its content.

Shankar also produced his government-authorised Hindu Scheduled Caste certificate in court to prove that he had not converted to any other religion and was therefore not authorised to carry out conversions to Christianity.

The government lawyer argued that religious conversion was not just “against religious freedom and rights” but was also a “threat to the nation’s security”. “If conversion is not stopped, that day is not far when the majority community will become a minority,” said district government counsel Priyadarshi Piyush Tripathi, repeating the controversial statement made by Allahabad high court judge Justice Rohit Ranjan Agarwal in July last year while rejecting bail for a person who faced allegations similar to those against Shankar. The Supreme Court later barred the usage or citation of Justice Agarwal’s controversial words.

Azamgarh sessions judge Sanjeev Shukla found the prosecution’s story and the police investigation to be faulty and full of contradictions.

“The prosecution story is replete with inconsistencies, errors and contradictions. It does not stand the test of credibility and therefore appears doubtful,” he said in his order.

The judge underlined the contradictions in the monetary inducements allegedly offered by Shankar. While in the FIR, Sonkar said Shankar offered people Rs 500 each, in his court testimony he said he had received a personal offer of Rs 30,000. There was no clear or documentary evidence of any monetary allurement, noted Judge Shukla.

Sonkar also contradicted the version of the police investigation officer when it came to the alleged recovery of religious material. While Sonkar told the court that no money or item was recovered from Shankar at the time of his arrest at 11 am on August 31, 2021 the investigating officer sub-inspector Kushwaha in his inventory of arrest and recovery produced in court showed Shankar to be taken under arrest a day later, on September 1, with 12 religious books in his possession. Even though the officer claimed that Shankar was arrested from a public place (Kartalpur trijunction), he failed to produce a single independent witness of the event, only presenting two of his subordinates, constables Sandeep Singh and Pawan Kumar, as witnesses.

Judge Shukla noted that the police did not act as per the rules, making the prosecution story “dubious”. The judge also found the recovery and arrest memo, which had no signatures, to be suspicious as the investigation officer was himself a witness in the case. There were no independent witnesses.

While convicting Shankar for hurting religious sentiments, the court relied on the testimonies of Sonkar and Barnwal, the Azamgarh doctor.

Fear of the police and vigilante groups has impacted Shankar’s spiritual and religious life. It practically put a hold on his prayer meetings and ‘seva’ sessions, and he mostly stays home now.

But the ordeal has failed to diminish his conviction about faith. “It is the Collector’s job to issue conversion certificates to people. Having faith and becoming a Christian are two different things. We are vishwasi (believers), not Isai (Christians),” he said.

*Name changed to protect the victim’s anonymity.