Raipur: As the two Kerala nuns continue in detention in Chhattisgarh, one of the three tribal women said a woman associated with a right-wing outfit forced her to change her statement to the police, The Indian Express reported.
The 21-year-old tribal woman, who was back home in Narayanpur district on Wednesday after five days in a shelter home in Durg, said Jyoti Sharma assaulted her.
In a major twist to the case, she reportedly said that the police based their FIR on what members of the Bajrang Dal told them.
Arrested last Friday at the Durg railway station, the nuns, Preeti Marry and Vandana Francis, and another person, Sukhman Mandavi are charged with sections of the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act.
The charges have been brought on them following a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal worker who accused the nuns of forcibly converting three women from Narayanpur, alongside attempting to traffic them.
The Bajrang Dal’s Chhattisgarh coordinator, Rishi Mishra, reportedly said that Bajrang Dal workers responded after a rickshaw driver linked the outfit grew suspicious after overhearing the conversation between the nuns and the women.
‘A rickshaw driver associated with the Bajrang Dal overheard the conversation between the nuns and the women and suspected they were being trafficked, after which our workers reached the spot and gave a complaint to the GRP,’ Rishi Mishra was quoted as saying.
Later Sharma told the Indian Express that she would turn up ‘wherever Hindutva needs saving’.
Chhattisgarh DGP Arun Kumar Gautam refused to comment more than saying that ‘Matter is sub judice.’
The 21-year-old tribal woman told the outlet that ‘Please release all three, they are innocent’, adding that she had gone to Durg railway station to travel with the nuns on her own will following her parents’ consent.
Alongside accusing Sharma of assaulting her, she said that the Government Railway Police (GRP) in Durg did not record her statement, adding that the FIR was registered according to statement given by Bajrang Dal members.
Further explaining the background she said she was living with her parents and four sisters and learnt about a job at a hospital in Agra from one of the accused Mandavi, who goes to the same church.
‘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.’
Revealing further about the incidents leading to the arrest of the nuns, it is reported that a Bajrang Dal worker and the GRP reached the scene and started questioning 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.