Eight people were booked and later taken into custody on the charges of allegedly carrying out forced religious conversion in Kanakapura taluk of Ramanagara district in Karnataka, police said on Tuesday.
A first information report has been registered against the accused following a complaint from activists of the right-wing organisation, Sri Ram Sene, police said.The accused had travelled to Bengaluru to attend a mass prayer event held at Palace Grounds, said police.
“In Bengaluru, an event was organised for about 10,000 people from all over Karnataka after taking permission from all authorities in the city. They (accused) were apparently going there and we received the information regarding this,” Ramanagara district superintendent of police (SP) K Santosh Babu said.
“We registered an FIR and then called them for inquiry. During the probe, we found out that the eight people were already converted to Christianity three to four years back. They said that they were converted without any force,” Babu said.
The police have registered an FIR under Section 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the IPC. Even though the Karnataka government had recently promulgated the Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, also known as the anti-conversion law, police didn’t register a case under this law. “To register a case under the Anti-Conversion law, the victim has to file a complaint,” the SP said.
{{/usCountry}}The police have registered an FIR under Section 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class) of the IPC. Even though the Karnataka government had recently promulgated the Karnataka Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Act, also known as the anti-conversion law, police didn’t register a case under this law. “To register a case under the Anti-Conversion law, the victim has to file a complaint,” the SP said.
{{/usCountry}}A suo motu complaint was registered after the right-wing group members brought this to the attention of the police, alleging mass religious conversion.
Further, the police said that no arrests have been made regarding the case so far. However, they are trying to find out whether the source of funds was legal.
“The only thing we’re ascertaining is if anyone was funding this (event) or if they were using their own money. We’re still investigating the incident. These are people from the ST community in Kanakapura,” the SP said.
Meanwhile, Sri Ram Sene Ramanagara district president Nagarjun, who informed the police about the incident, demanded a thorough investigation into the matter.
“We received information under Kanakapura police limits that a couple, Mohan and Baby, were attempting to convert people from the Lambani community,” Nagarjun alleged.
“Our workers visited the location and after inspection, found that the couple had brought people from nearby areas to their house and tried to take them to Bengaluru for religious conversion,” he said.
“We demand a thorough investigation into the matter so that the truth can come out. The police should make sure that similar instances of religious conversion in Kanakapura taluk should be stopped,” he added.
In the first case under the Anti-Conversion law, a 24-year-old Muslim man was arrested in October under the recently enacted Protection of Right to Freedom of Religion Law in Bengaluru, on the charges of converting a woman on the pretext of marriage. According to the police, the case was registered against Syed Mueen, a resident of BK Nagar in northern Bengaluru, on a complaint lodged by the woman’s family that he had forcefully converted their 19-year-old daughter to Islam promising marriage.