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The Wire
6 days ago
- The Wire
Kerala Police Register FIR After Pastor is Threatened Over Allegations of Religious Conversion
Communalism In footage aired by local media, a group of people can be seen confronting the pastor and issuing threats of physical harm. New Delhi: The Kerala police have registered a case after a group of right-wing people allegedly threatened a pastor over accusations of religious conversion. The case was registered after the police took suo motu cognisance and initiated action on their own, without a formal complaint, reported Press Trust of India. The incident comes days after the arrest and imprisonment of two catholic nuns from Kerala in Chhattisgarh over allegations of religious conversion and human trafficking. The incident has resulted in a political storm in the southern state. The police in Wayanad registered the case in the latest incident on Saturday (August 2) based on a video circulated on social media platforms in this regard. The incident is believed to have taken place a few months back. In footage aired by local media, a group of people can be seen confronting the pastor and issuing threats of physical harm. The FIR, registered by the Sultan Bathery police says that the accused had tried to threaten a person alleging religious conversion, videographed the incident, and circulated it on social media platforms with the intention of destroying the peaceful atmosphere existing in the society. The FIR has been registered under various sections of the BNS including 192 (wantonly giving provocation with intent to cause riot), 351 (3) (criminal intimidation to cause death or grievous hurt) and 3 (5) (an offense committed by several people with a common intention). The PTI report said that a probe is being conducted to identify the accused persons seen in the video, sources added. Meanwhile, the two Kerala nuns arrested in Chhattisgarh were granted bail on Saturday, along with a man who was arrested with them. 'The judge granted bail observing there was no need to keep them in custody,' said Amrito Das, the counsel for the nuns, reported Hindustan Times. Earlier, following the bail hearing on Friday (August 1), Das had said that the prosecution had not asked for the trio's custody for interrogation, and the alleged victims had been sent back to their homes. He had also pointed out that the alleged victims are all adults practising Christianity. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
The Wire
01-08-2025
- Politics
- The Wire
If Hindus Can't Be Terrorists, Was Godse Not a Hindu?
Communalism The ideological position that Hindus cannot be terrorists falls flat in the face of several other historical examples. On July 21, the Bombay high court acquitted all 12 men accused in the Bombay pressure cooker blasts of 2006. All the accused were Muslims. Within two days of that verdict, the Maharashtra government chose to appeal to the Supreme Court against the acquittal of the twelve men – saying that that the judgement could impact other Maharashtra Control of Organised Crime Act (MCOCA) cases. The top court passed a partial stay on the Bombay high court verdict. Some ten days later, an NIA court acquitted Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya Thakur in the 2008 Malegaon blast case, in which seven people were killed and over a hundred wounded. Within hours, a spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party held a press briefing, hailing the Bombay high court verdict and lambasting the Congress for floating the notion of "saffron terror." Clearly, where the verdict in the matter of the 2006 blasts was looked upon by the BJP as a temporary event, reversible by the Supreme Court, the other verdict pertaining to the Malegaon blasts is sought to be stamped with finality. The reason for this discordance is not a legal one, since a legal argument cannot uphold the view that one verdict is medial and the other final because such a view may suit an interested party. The reason lies in the ideological position that Hindus cannot be terrorists and that it is Islam alone that is prone to such shenanigans. Thus, we must understand that Nathu Ram Godse was not a Hindu; that the LTTE in Sri Lanka, who invented the suicide bomber, were not Hindus; that Maoists, whom the right wing never tires of calling terrorists, are not Hindus; that Sikhs, whom Hindutva ideologues consider Hindus, could not be terrorists even if the Khalistan movement saw rampant terrorism. Not to mention that many freedom fighters during the colonial rule, several of whom were Hindus, engaged in violent activities against the British and were called terrorists by the colonial oppressors. As for the Malegaon blast case, it might be instructive to listen to what prosecutor Rohini Salian has confided to The Indian Express. Salian revealed how after change of government at the centre in 2014, an NIA officer asked to meet her, explicitly not to be told on the phone, and instructed her that as per advice from above, she was to go soft on the Malegaon case. She has underlined how all the evidence previously gathered under Article 164 (given before a magistrate as admissible evidence) was set aside by the new NIA investigators, and revamped evidence adduced. Salian said that the high court verdict acquitting Colonel Purohit and Sadhvi Pragya was one she had "expected." It remains to be seen if the government will think it right to appeal the Malegaon verdict in the Supreme Court with similar swiftness that it had displayed after the Bombay blast verdict. Badri Raina taught at Delhi University. The Wire is now on WhatsApp. Follow our channel for sharp analysis and opinions on the latest developments.
