‘Attack on minorities’: Congress protests, seeks release of nuns

Nuns Preethi Merry and Vandana Francis were arrested at Durg railway station on July 25 following a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal functionary, who accused them of forcibly converting three girls and trafficking them.

“Some nuns from Kerala were very badly ill-treated… They were manhandled by Chhattisgarh Police. We are protesting against these kinds of attacks on minorities,” Priyanka said.

Raising the matter in LS during Zero Hour, Congress members K C Venugopal, Hibi Eden and other Opposition MPs called the incident “deeply disturbing”.

“These two innocent nuns are in jail for the last five days… Is the country a banana republic?… We wrote to the CM of Chhattisgarh and Home Minister of India… But the Chhattisgarh CM is repeating the same version of Bajrang Dal,” Venugopal said.

Congress MP Hibi Eden said, “But the Bajrang Dal workers put pressure on the government and jailed them. False accusations have been made… cases of human trafficking and conversion have wrongfully been made.”

BJP Durg MP Vijay Baghel, countered the allegations and said that Congress MPs were doing a conspiracy against a “well-governed” and “sensitive” government of Chhattisgarh by indulging in misleading propaganda and trying to create tension between two religions.