Catholic religious leaders in India have decried the arrest and continued detention of two nuns in Chhattisgarh state, labeling it a “gross abuse of the law.”
Newsroom (31/07/2025, Gaudium Press ) Catholic religious leaders in India have decried the arrest and continued detention of two nuns in Chhattisgarh state, labeling it a “gross abuse of the law.” Sisters Vandana Francis and Preeti Mary, members of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate (ASMI) within the Syro-Malabar Church, were detained on July 25 at Durg railway station on charges of human trafficking and forced conversion. The Durg district court rejected their bail pleas on July 30, citing lack of jurisdiction and referring the case to a National Investigation Agency (NIA) court, which handles terror-related cases.
The Conference of Religious India (CRI), representing over 130,000 religious men and women, issued a statement on July 30 condemning the arrests as “completely false and fabricated.” The CRI described the incident as part of a broader pattern of hate crimes targeting minorities, particularly Christians, and called for action against the right-wing Hindu activists and police involved.
The nuns were apprehended while meeting three women, aged 19 to 22, at the station. The women, members of the Church of South India (CSI), were traveling voluntarily with parental consent to work as domestic help in convents. Sukhman Mandavi, an indigenous youth accompanying them, was also arrested. Hindu activists accused the nuns of trafficking the women to convert them to Christianity, despite the women’s statements affirming their Christian faith and voluntary travel.
Father Robinson Rodrigues, spokesperson for the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), announced plans to challenge the detention in the NIA court. “This is an illegal detention,” he stated, emphasizing the nuns’ innocence.
In Kerala, the nuns’ home state, protests erupted on July 30. Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, head of the Syro-Malabar Church and president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council, led a march in Thiruvananthapuram, the state capital, to the Raj Bhavan, the Governor’s residence. Demonstrators, including priests, nuns, and laypeople, wore black cloths over their faces to protest what they called an attack on India’s secular foundations. Cleemis urged federal and state governments to ensure justice, stressing that the nuns are Indian citizens, not foreigners.
The arrests have spotlighted tensions in Chhattisgarh, where Christians make up less than 2% of the state’s 30 million population. Critics accuse the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, of enabling Hindu nationalist groups that oppose Christian missionary activities in pursuit of a Hindu-only nation. The CRI has demanded accountability for those responsible for the nuns’ detention, as protests continue to call for their immediate release.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from UCAN News
Related Images:
