Chhattisgarh court reserves order on bail plea of two Kerala nuns in trafficking-conversion case

A special NIA court in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district on Friday, 1 August, reserved its order on a bail application filed by three persons including two nuns from Kerala, arrested on the charges of human trafficking and forced religious conversion.

"The prosecution opposed the bail plea, submitting that the case is in its initial stage of investigation. The court has reserved its order till tomorrow (Saturday)," public prosecutor Dauram Chandravanshi told reporters.

The hearing took place before Principal District and Sessions Judge (NIA court) Sirajuddin Qureshi.

Nuns Preethi Mary and Vandana Francis along with Sukaman Mandavi were arrested by the railway police at the Durg railway station on 25 July following a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal functionary who accused them of forcibly converting three girls from Narayanpur and trafficking them.

Defence lawyer Amrito Das said the prosecution had not asked for their custody for interrogation, and the alleged victims have been sent back to their homes. "They are all major, and have been following Christianity already, so the allegation of conversion is false," he said, citing his arguments in the court.

The parents of the three women have told police that their daughters were not being taken away forcibly or fraudulently, he said.

The issue of the nuns' arrest was raised by opposition parties in Parliament earlier this week.

A delegation of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) from Kerala arrived in Raipur on Friday to meet the two nuns.

Members of the delegation alleged that referring the case to the National Investigation Agency (NIA) court by the Durg sessions court was a conspiracy to ensure that they did not get bail immediately.