‘Forced me to give false statement’: Chhattisgarh ‘human trafficking’ victim accuses Bajrang Dal of ‘coercion’; backs arrested Kerala nuns | India News

NEW DELHI: A victim of an alleged human trafficking and forceful conversion, in which three, including two nuns from Kerala, have been arrested in Chhattisgarh, has alleged she was “coerced and assaulted” by Bajrang Dal activists to give a false statement, a charge denied by the right-wing outfit.The woman, 21, further claimed that her police statement was also not recorded properly, and added that her family has been following Christianity for the last four-five years.Also Read: Kerala rises in protest over nuns’ arrest in ChhattisgarhHer parents, too, declared that the arrested persons arrested were innocent. They called for the trio to be released from jail.“I was going to Agra with the nuns with the consent of my parents. From there, we were about to go to Bhopal where we were to be given work at a Christian hospital. We were promised Rs 10,000 salary per month along with food, clothes and accommodation,” the woman recalled to news agency PTI.“The nuns, whom I had never met before, arrived a few hours later there. Meanwhile, we were confronted by a person. Later, other persons from Bajrang Dal joined him. They started threatening, abusing and assaulting us,” she added.Also Read: Kerala nuns incident tarnished India’s image, says Orthodox synodThe Government Railway Police (GRP), she alleged, took her to a railway police station, where she was slapped by a woman, Jyoti Sharma, who identified herself as a right-wing activist.“Sharma slapped me and threatened me to change my statement. She told me to say I was taken by force. She threatened that if I didn’t, my brother would be jailed and beaten up. The GRP did not take my actual statement and were writing things I never said. When I tried to speak, they told me to be quiet and asked if I wanted to go home,” she stated.The woman described Sukhman Mandavi, who was arrested along with the nuns, as a “brother to me.”However, Bajrang Dal Durg unit convener Ravi Nigam denied all the allegations.“We have neither threatened nor beaten anyone. There are CCTV cameras installed at the railway station, the truth will come out through them,” Nigam noted.Nuns Preethi Mary and Vandana Francis, along with Mandavi were arrested by the GRP at Chhattisgarh’s Durg railway station on July 25 following a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal functionary, who accused them of “forcibly converting” three women from the tribal-dominated Narayanpur district and trafficking them.