Indian Catholics released after 104 days in jail under anti-conversion law

Ten Catholics who were arrested after they chased a group of Hindu activists out of a village church during Mass in India’s desert state of Rajasthan returned home on the night of Aug. 13, more than 100 days after they were jailed.

“We are happy and relieved as our people have been released after being imprisoned for over 100 days on false charges,” Bishop Devprasad John Ganawa of Udaipur, a Divine Word missionary, told EWTN News on Aug. 17.

Hindu activists barged into the church and disrupted the Mass at Communion time on the evening of May 1 in the remote village of Kalinjara, in Banswara district in southern Rajasthan, shouting accusations of “conversion.” Catholics confronted the intruders and chased them out.

Instead of registering a criminal case against the intruders, police in the state, which is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), charged the Catholics with “conversion and attempt to murder” and arrested members of Bandaria Parish on the nights of May 1 and May 3. Ten were held in judicial custody.

Father Arvind Amliyar, the parish priest, told EWTN News in May that the group entered during Communion and began filming and that one of…