'I Will Not Deny Christ': Pastor, Wife Imprisoned On False Charges Of Forced Conversion Win Bail

NEW DELHI — A Christian couple in India convicted of forcible conversion no topic lack of evidence and sentenced to 5 years in penal advanced have acquired bail whereas they enchantment, sources said.

Pastor Jose Pappachen, 58, and his wife, Sheeja Pappachen, 57, were released on Feb. 19 after a Classes Court docket in Ambedkar Nagar, Uttar Pradesh on Jan. 22 sentenced them to penal advanced and a elegant of 25,000 rupees ($287 USD) every below the sing’s stringent anti-conversion legislation. The Lucknow bench of the Allahabad Excessive Court docket granted bail to the pastor on Feb. 6 and to his wife on Feb. 5.

Pastor Pappachen said the general allegations against them were fabricated. He and his wife are now not linked to any church or denomination and were surviving on 10,000 rupees ($115 USD) every month.

“After paying 4,000 rupees condominium lease every month, we were left with most attention-grabbing 6,000 rupees to outlive on for the month — how could perhaps we maybe have ample money to prepare neighborhood lunches or pay americans to severely change?” Pastor Pappachen immediate Morning Massive name Records.

After Chandrika Prasad, district minister of the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Birthday party, filed a written criticism at Jalalpur police space in Ambedkar Nagar District on Jan. 24, 2023, police arrested the couple below two statutes: the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Faith Act, 2021 and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.

On Oct. 8, 2023, however, the court docket ordered the removing of costs below the SC/ST Act from the First Records Narrative (FIR).

Prasad alleged that sing residents had immediate him that the Christian couple were enticing participants of the Dalit neighborhood to severely change to Christianity over the earlier three months and demanded strict action against them.

The couple used to be arrested on Jan. 25, 2023, from their dwelling in Shahpur Firojpur village in Jalalpur block. Police experiences stated that the couple weekly visited the dwelling of a girl named Vifla, the place they gathered native residents and performed Bible seek courses, Pastor Pappachen said. He denied the allegations.

“The girl in whose condominium they claimed we held Bible seek testified in court docket that she does now not even know us,” Pastor Pappachen immediate Morning Massive name Records.

A resident of Kerala sing, Pastor Pappachen and his wife had ministered in Bihar sing for nearly 10 years earlier than they moved to Shahpur Firojpur in September 2022 on the demand of a pastor who lacked time to mentor his congregation.

“He requested us to achieve to this village and serve his congregation here,” said Pastor Pappachen, who knew no person beside the pastor who invited them.

Upon arrival, the couple stumbled on that the 20 to 25 participants of the congregation belonged to a sector that survived by stealing and robbing.

“That they had now not mended their ways, so we began educating them the fundamental truth from the Bible about living transformed lives,” said Pastor Pappachen, refuting the allegation of conducting “mass conversion” thru allurement. “These persons are now not my congregation. They were all already attending church, and we did now not preach to a single person, nor has a single person been added to the already established church. We were factual doing a job of ‘repairing and mending’ americans that got to us.”

Court docket files teach that one in every of the 11 prosecution witnesses, identified most attention-grabbing as Roshini, immediate police the couple would have a honest correct time the birth of Christ in their village and would prepare neighborhood lunches. She moreover said the couple proficient her a calendar that had an image of Jesus on it, and she had surrendered the calendar to the police. Another prosecution see, identified most attention-grabbing as Bhagmani and identified as Munni, stated that the couple would confer alongside with her condominium, pray and educate “moral things.”

In distinction, a prosecution see identified most attention-grabbing as Anjani said the couple bribed her family with money, requested them to like Jesus and gave them a Bible, although she later acknowledged that her family did now not know read and write. She alleged that the couple wanted to rob honest correct thing about their illiteracy and trap them to Christianity.

Pastor Pappachen denied the allegation, noting that, as they were illiterate, “Then why would anybody give them a e book to read, now not to mention a Bible?”

Despite no sure evidence of forced conversion, a lower court docket denied their preliminary bail plea, and the couple languished in jail for eight months.

Pastor Pappachen used to be housed in the boys’s share of the penal advanced whereas his wife used to be detained in the females’s cruise, and they were permitted to meet most attention-grabbing as soon as a week.

The couple confronted incorrect hardships, he said. Besides being a diabetic, Pastor Pappachen suffers from prostrate inconvenience and needed to be hospitalized for three months whereas in penal advanced. He confronted respiratory disaster, and excessive knee effort rendered him unable to depart.

“I felt very frail in my physique,” he said.

The pastor said inmates and policemen verbally pressured him as someone “in the industry of converting americans,” and that the 50 inmates in his cell treated him with prejudice and contempt.

“Even prisoners arrested for essential crimes luxuriate in rape and assassinate would warn others to protect distance from me, claiming I could perhaps convert someone who sat beside me inner a minute,” Pastor Pappachen said.

Policemen would request him several questions about his grandfather and mighty-grandfather, making an try to blow their own horns that his ancestors were Hindus and had later converted. They requested him why Jesus used to be crucified on a unfriendly — what were His crimes? — and whether or now not Christians cremated or buried their ineffective.

“I said nothing, because I knew they were buying for an excuse to scorn Jesus and my faith,” he said.

Drained of their questioning, Pastor Pappachen at some point soon immediate a policeman, “I was born in a Christian dwelling, I grew up as a Christian, I might die a Christian. Even must you hang me, I might now not relate Christ.”

An officer declared that from that time on, everybody in the jail must address him as “Ram Dulari,” a feminine name which manner cherished of the Hindu god Rama.

“Besides my physical diseases, the psychological trauma that the policemen and the inmates were inflicting on me used to be causing me excessive despair. I’d continuously sit down and shout,” Pastor Pappachen immediate Morning Massive name Records.

The relentless harassment in the spoil pushed him to such desperation that he begged law enforcement officials to shoot him and “story it as an detect killing,” he said.

In the course of this time, the district court docket rejected bail for the couple, and the couple’s attorney appealed to the Excessive Court docket for bail.

“I felt that we’ll rot and die there, because all americans that came earlier than and after us bought bail and were out,” the pastor said.

He determined to speedily and pray, eating most attention-grabbing one meal a day.

“The Lord identified lots of my shortcomings. I repented of my sins and after 30 days of my fasting, we bought bail” in September 2023, he said.

In the course of trial they attended spherical 30 court docket hearings earlier than they were convicted on Jan. 22 and detained again.

“We were mentally willing that although we are convicted, it is for the Lord,” said Pastor Pappachen, adding that he witnessed a drastic distinction in his therapy in jail.

“Folks in the jail treated us so successfully,” he said. “The policemen had a ‘transformation of heart,’ and they confessed that we were harmless americans, framed falsely.”

The couple did now not request to make bail so swiftly.

“It used to be nothing wanting a miracle that we were granted bail so soon,” said Pastor Pappachen. “We’re so grateful to all americans that prayed for us and to all americans that stood with us.”

The couple has now not been immediate when the Excessive Court docket could perhaps summon them for any extra ability questioning, which could perhaps rob space inner the next 18 months.

The adverse tone of India’s authorities against non-Hindus has emboldened Hindu extremists and others to attack Christians since Narendra Modi took vitality in Can also 2014, spiritual rights advocates speak.

India ranked 11th on Christian serve organization Originate Doors’ 2025 World Glimpse Checklist of the nations the place it is most tough to be a Christian. The country used to be thirty first in 2013, but its space worsened after Modi came to vitality.

This article used to be originally published at Morning Massive name Records 

Morning Massive name Records is the particular just files carrier focusing solely on the persecution of Christians. The nonprofit’s mission is to provide total, respectable, even-handed files in clarify to empower these in the free world to abet persecuted Christians, and to abet persecuted Christians by informing them that they are now not by myself in their struggling.

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