Source: Morning Star News, September 21, 2023<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Not even a judge\u2019s reprimand of police spared an impoverished pastor in India from being jailed on baseless claims of fraudulent conversion, one of the latest examples of how Hindu extremists misuse \u201canti-conversion\u201d laws.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Pastor Bajarang Rawat, a 47-year-old convert from Hinduism in Mohanlalganj, Lucknow District in Uttar Pradesh state, faces charges of converting people by \u201callurement\u201d even though police could find no witnesses against him, and the only evidence they presented was his Bible, the pastor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReprimanding the policemen, the magistrate told them that it was not a crime to possess a Bible, and that he himself has a Bible at home,\u201d Pastor Rawat told Morning Star News. \u201cThe policemen stood silent, but even after this conversation, I was sent to jail.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The full story<\/a> includes pictures of Pastor Rawat and his family. They have suffered greatly for some time due to fierce local opposition and were living in poverty, with nothing to offer others but prayer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Also from Morning Star News, though, read this strange story: Pastor in Pakistan Admits Wound Was Self Inflicted, Leader Says<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Source: Morning Star News, September 21, 2023 Not even a judge\u2019s reprimand of police spared an impoverished pastor in India from being jailed on baseless claims of fraudulent conversion, one of the latest examples of how Hindu extremists misuse \u201canti-conversion\u201d laws. Pastor Bajarang Rawat, a 47-year-old convert from Hinduism in Mohanlalganj, Lucknow District in Uttar … Continue reading India: Baseless Charge Leaves a Pastor and His Family in Ruins<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-briefs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12418"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12419,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12418\/revisions\/12419"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/missionscatalyst.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}