The Mokhada Police in Palghar have booked 22 women for allegedly attempting to convert people to Christianity in Wakadpada village of Palghar district and hurting religious sentiments. No arrests have been made, and none are planned at this stage, police have said.
The FIR was registered on a complaint by an 18-year-old boy, who told police that the women approached his house and offered him religious books. He said he refused to accept them.
The women have been booked under Section 299 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), which deals with deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings, and Section 3(5), relating to acts done by several persons in furtherance of a common intention.
The case comes days before the Maharashtra Freedom of Religion Act, 2026, is scheduled to come into effect on August 28.
According to police, a group of 20 women from Hyderabad came to the village along with one woman from Ulhasnagar in Thane district and another from Palghar.
Police have identified Satyavati Balkrishna Kunche, 46, of Ulhasnagar, and Kusum Shivram Kambdi, a local, as two primary suspects in the alleged conversion case.
Investigation officer Pratik Pokale said Kunche allegedly offered some free-of-cost religious texts to the boy and told him that reading them would cure illnesses and protect him from diseases.
The boy later informed other villagers, following which residents reportedly intercepted the group.
“We have not arrested anyone. They won’t be arrested,” Pokale said. “The next step is investigation, recording statements of all the people they came in contact with, where they went, where they work and why they came particularly to Mokhada.”
He said the Hyderabad-based women were allowed to leave, but would be required to cooperate with the investigation.
‘Disrupting Sunday prayers’: Christian community
Meanwhile, the Christian community in Palghar has questioned whether the incident involved an attempt at religious conversion.
Pastor Sam K. Mathai, secretary of the Palghar Zilla Masih Sangati, an association of pastors, said the organisation was conducting its own inquiry. “As of now, it is difficult to say there was any sort of conversion in the matter,” he said.
Mathai said the new law had made it easier to register cases against members of the Christian community without a thorough examination of the allegations. “They are disrupting our Sunday prayers also and accusing us of conversion. This is not the way an investigation should progress,” he said.
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