In a joint letter to Union Home Minister Amit Shah, a number of Members of Parliament (MPs) from the Left party have urged him to step in and help two Catholic nuns, Sr Vandhana Francis and Sr Preethi Mary, who were detained and are still being held in Chhattisgarh's courts.
Signed by CPI MP P Sandosh Kumar and CPI(M) MPs K Radhakrishnan, Amra Ram, R Sachithanantham, AA Rahim, V Sivadasan, and John Brittas, the letter denounces the arrests as an assault on religious freedom and a manifestation of the growing animosity towards minority communities. On July 25, the nuns were taken into custody at Durg Railway Station on suspicion of forced religious conversion and human trafficking. In their letter, the MPs contend that these accusations are "unsubstantiated and concocted," pointing out that the nuns were only going with three adult Jharkhandi women who were going to Agra for work.
The women themselves have not lodged a complaint, the letter emphasises, and they have confirmed that they were traveling willingly with their parents' approval. It also states that the women were already practicing Christians, making the forced conversion charges baseless.
The MPs criticised the police for invoking the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act and Section 143 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita to justify the arrests. They expressed concern that despite the lack of evidence and the nuns' clean criminal records, their bail applications were rejected on "procedural technicalities." The letter points out that a Sessions Court in Durg declined to hear their plea, citing a lack of jurisdiction and directing the matter to a Special NIA Court, which has led to a "procedural limbo" that keeps the nuns in custody.
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In the letter, it was also mentioned that the incident has caused widespread outrage in Kerala and across the country, creating "immense pain and unrest among the Christian community and all those who believe in secularism, constitutional values, and justice."
Citing a United Christian Forum report that documented more than 500 instances of violence against Christians in 2024 alone, the MPs also expressed alarm over the alarming increase in targeted violence and intimidation against Christian communities and aid workers in India. A "discernible trend of criminalising religious identity and suppressing compassion driven work through a toxic mix of vigilante aggression and institutional apathy" is how they defined this pattern.
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