3 men arrested in UP’s Jhansi for demanding action against Kerala nuns

Jhansi residents Anchal Agadiya, Purukesh Amariya, and Ajay Shankar Tiwari were produced before a magistrate on Friday and sent to jail till April 6

Three men were arrested after they created a ruckus at the Government Railway Police (GRP) Station in Uttar Pradesh’s Jhansi on Thursday night, alleging inaction over their forced religious conversion complaint against two nuns last month, a police officer said.

Representational Image.

The nuns were harassed and taken off a train in Jhansi on March 19 after a group of people claiming to be associated with Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) accused the former of taking two postulants accompanying them for forced conversion.

Jhansi residents Anchal Agadiya, Purukesh Amariya, and Ajay Shankar Tiwari were booked under Section 151 of the Criminal Procedure Code (arrest to prevent the commission of a cognisable offence).

Police superintendent (Railway) Somitra Yadav, who was rushed to Jhansi on March 25 to inquire into the harassment, said the three were produced before a magistrate on Friday and sent to jail till April 6.

Investigators said Agadiya had informed the Railway Protection Force (RPF) control room and GRP (Jhansi) station house officer about his suspicion that the nuns were taking the two postulants for conversion. On his complaint, RPF took off the nuns and the postulants from the Odisha-bound Utkal Express on March 19.

Yadav said Tiwari later lodged a formal complaint with GRP in Jhansi on March 19. . Yadav said the three were building pressure on the police to act upon the complaint.

An inquiry into the harassment was ordered late last month hours after Union home minister Amit Shah assured at a public rally in election-bound Kerala that strong action would be taken against those who harassed the nuns. The issue snowballed into a major controversy after Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan and Congress leader Rahul Gandhi took the nuns’ case up when the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is reaching out to the Christian community, which accounts for 16% of the electorate in Kerala.

ABVP is a student organisation affiliated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the BJP’s ideological fount.

The nuns and postulants belong to New Delhi’s Sacred Hearts Congregation. They were returning to their native Rourkela in Odisha on March 19.

A video of the harassment went viral on social media and purportedly showed the policemen threatening and misbehaving with the nuns, who were also forced to show their Aadhaar cards before they were later taken off the train. The nuns and postulants were brought to the GRP station even the postulants insisted they were Christians by birth. Officials of Jhansi’s St Jude’s Church also showed their baptism certificates to the police.

The nuns and the postulants remained at the police station for three hours before they were released. They spent the night in Jhansi before leaving for Rourkela the next day on March 20.