Two Catholic priests have been arrested in the central Indian Madhya Pradesh state for allegedly obstructing government officials when they came for a surprise raid of a Catholic orphanage.
Newsroom (09/05/2023 19:05, Gaudium Press) The priests were, however, released on bail by a court on May 8, hours after they were arrested for allegedly preventing the members of the state’s child rights panel during the raid on St. Francis Sevadham Orphanage in Shyampur in Sagar diocese.
“We were charged with false case after we objected to the inspection team, which wanted to climb on the altar,” said Father E. P. Joshy, youth director of Sagar diocese, who was picked up by the state police along with Father Naveen B.
Joshy came to the campus of the orphanage following information that a team from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, led by its chairperson Priyank Kanoongo, was conducting a flash raid.
“The team besides inspecting the orphanage also searched the church, convent, presbytery, and two hostels of children,” the priest said.
“Father Naveen and I tried to tell them that the altar of a church for any Catholic is divine. But they climbed onto it and dismantled the holy objects,” the priest said.
“They immediately summoned the police who thrashed us in front of everyone,” the priest lamented.
The inspection team forcefully took away a resident of the orphanage alleging complaints from his parents. However, they did not produce any documentary evidence to substantiate their claim, said Father Sinto Varghese, director of the orphanage.
The team, according to orphanage officials, destroyed computers, CCTVs, mobile phones and important documents and has levelled conversion charges against the orphanage administration.
“They collected many materials and other documents from the orphanage and accused us of conversion,” Father Varghese said on May 9.
This is not the first time the orphanage in the pro-Hindu party-ruled state has come under the scanner of the child rights panel.
In January 2022, an attempt was made by the District Child Welfare Committee to evict 44 students on charges that they were made to eat beef and forced to convert to Christianity. Orthodox Hindus revere cows as holy and abhor eating beef. The case was proved false later when a state court restrained the government from removing the students to a state-run facility.
“There is a restraint order from the top court against inspection by the child rights panel. We told them, but they ignored us. We will move the court for contempt of court proceedings,” Varghese said.
The district panel had earlier in December 2021 tried to target the institution based on a false complaint of religious conversion.
The multiple raids by the child rights panel come as the application for renewal of the orphanage license has been pending before the right-wing government since 2020. The matter is now pending before the high court in Madhya Pradesh.
The orphanage is located on a prime 277-acre plot of land granted to the Church during the colonial British era. According to Church sources, the property is targeted by land sharks, backed by Hindu groups and the pro-Hindu government in Madhya Pradesh state.
The pro-Hindu party of Bharatiya Janta Party, which rules most Indian states including Madhya Pradesh, has enacted or sharpened sweeping anti-conversion laws. Christian leaders say these laws aim to target Christian missionary work.
Raju Hasmukh with files from UCAN