A Supreme Court lawyer on how recent legal reforms could affect the country’s minorities.
On June 23, authorities arrested Sarju Prasad, a pastor in Uttar Pradesh, for conducting Sunday worship in his house. Earlier that day, two Hindu men, one claiming to be a journalist, had entered his house during the morning service and taken photographs.
That evening, two policemen detained Prasad on charges of plans to commit cognizable offenses. However, their explanations only came out later; at the time, they did not notify him of the grounds of arrest, a violation of India’s Code of Criminal Procedure. They also ignored the procedure’s requirement that the offender be brought before a judge within 24 hours of being taken into custody.
Instead, Prasad was only presented before a magistrate two days later and was released on bail on June 25. Shortly after, on July 2, while collecting his cell phone at the police station, authorities re-arrested him, saying that he had violated the state’s anti-conversion law. This time, he was denied bail and is now in prison.
Prasad’s case is just one of many where the local police have allegedly colluded with Hindu extremists and arrested Christians conducting peaceful prayers, tyrannizing their rights. Indian Christians are apprehensive about what might happen under the new criminal laws that have replaced their three British-era counterparts. Described as “draconian” by some legal experts, the legislation has elicited criticism and protests, and Christian, Muslim, and other vulnerable communities fear possible abuses of the new laws.
The Parliament of India approved the three new laws last December without following due process, according to the opposition. They replaced the Indian Penal Code with the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), the Code of Criminal ...
