A special NIA court in Chhattisgarh on Saturday granted bail to the two nuns who were arrested on July 25, accused of forced religious conversion.
“The court has granted conditional bail to all three,” said defence lawyer Amrito Das, confirming the decision.
The nuns, Sr Preeti Marry and Sr Vandana Francis and another person travelling with them – Sukhman Mandavi, were arrested last Friday at the Durg railway station in Chhattisgarh.
The arrest triggered widespread protests from political parties across the country. Several MPs, including P Santhosh Kumar and John Brittas from the CPI(M), were present at the NIA hearing and had confirmed that they would remain in Bilaspur until the verdict. Archbishop Mar Joseph Pamplany of the Thalassery Archdiocese, who led a mammoth protest rally demanding justice for the nuns, told reporters in Kerala that the Chhattisgarh government’s opposition to bail at the National Investigation Agency’s (NIA) court in Basalpur was “condemnable and suspicious.”
Amid mounting protests in Kerala by both the ruling CPI(M)-led LDF and the opposition Congress-led UDF over the arrest of the nuns, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi alleged that they were jailed in Chhattisgarh because of their faith and claimed that a “systematic persecution” of minorities was taking place wherever the BJP was in power.
Noting that religious freedom is a constitutional right, Gandhi demanded the immediate release of the nuns and accountability for the injustice committed against them. “Two Catholic nuns jailed in Chhattisgarh after being targeted for their faith – this isn’t justice, it’s BJP-RSS mob rule. It reflects a dangerous pattern: systematic persecution of minorities under this regime,” Gandhi said in a post on X.
The FIR, registered under sections of the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, was based on a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal worker, who alleged that the accused forcibly converted three women from Narayanpur and were attempting to traffic them. But one of the three Narayanpur women told The New Indian Express that she was threatened and assaulted by Jyoti Sharma, a woman associated with a right-wing outfit, to change her statement and the police based their FIR on what members of the Bajrang Dal told them.
The 21-year-old woman reached her home in Narayanpur district on Wednesday after spending five days in a shelter home in Durg. “Please release all three (arrested accused), they are innocent,” she told TNIE on the phone.
She had gone to Durg railway station on Friday to travel with the nuns of her own will, and with her parents’ consent. She alleged that Sharma assaulted her and the Government Railway Police (GRP) in Durg did not record her statement. Instead, she alleged, the police based the First Information Report on a statement given by Bajrang Dal members.
The woman lives with her parents and four sisters, and earns Rs 250 as daily wages. She had heard of a job opportunity from one of the arrested – Mandavi, who goes to the same church and is like a brother to her. The woman said, “I used to cycle for nine kilometres every day for work. I have studied up to class 10. Mandavi offered me a job as a cook for the nuns and to look after patients (at a hospital in Agra). They promised Rs 10,000 apart from food, clothes and shelter. I was happy.”
On the day of the arrest, the woman said she and two other women from Orcha in Narayanpur reached the Durg railway station around 6 am. They were accompanied by Mandavi. Around 9 am, the nuns, whom she had never met, arrived. Shortly after, a Bajrang Dal worker and the GRP reached the scene and started questioning them, she alleged.
The woman claimed that Jyoti Sharma, a woman associated with a Hindutva outfit, told her she must say she was being taken against her will, or else her brother would be beaten
“I had met the nuns for the first time. When we were being assaulted, one of the nuns said, ‘do not worry, I am here with you.’ She told the person beating us, ‘hit us, but not them’.”
“They took us to the railway police station. We were scolded a lot, and Jyoti Sharma hit me twice on the face. She said that if you do not follow what we say, we will put your siblings in jail and assault them. They wanted us to say that we were brought here forcibly. I told Sharma that I have come of my own will and have the consent of my parents. I said this inside the police station in the presence of two to three policemen,” she claimed.
The attackers hurled vile insults at the nuns, calling them a “rotting sore feeding on society”.
Massive support for the nuns
“They are not alone,” Sr Isbel Francis, superior general of the ASMI generalate of Green Gardens, Cherthala, told TNIE. “Nuns all over the country and even outside have joined ranks. They are observing fasts and praying for their fellow sisters,” she said.
“Our mission convent, with the Assisi Shanti Health Centre, was started in Narayanpur in 1976. The health centre was later developed into a hospital in 2015. It is the only healthcare facility providing medical and surgical care to the downtrodden and underprivileged in the area. The two sisters worked at the hospital,” she said.
Public concern over the welfare of the nuns, Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis, both senior citizens suffering from chronic ailments, escalated in the last one week that they remained in jail.
Senior CPI(M) leader Brinda Karat on Wednesday (July 30, 2025) met the two nuns at the Durg Central Jail in Chhattisgarh following which she called the arrests “unconstitutional and illegal”, and demanded their immediate release. Ms. Karat also held a press conference in Raipur where she said that the allegations against the nuns were false.
(Picture Courtesy: PTI)
