Five persons, including a local Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader, were arrested on Tuesday in connection with the church attack in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur city, reported The Indian Express.
A church was vandalised during a protest by a group of tribals who also attacked police personnel on Monday. This happened after the group held a meeting to discuss religious conversions in the tribal-dominated Narayanpur in the afternoon, who then barged at the Viswadeepti School premises and vandalised the church. Narayanpur SP Sadanand Kumar suffered a head injury in the attack.
The protestors then went on a rampage and carried out violent demonstrations in other places in the city, including Bakhrupara Bazaar, reported PTI.
Those arrested have been identified as BJP leader Rupsai Salam (55), Pawankumar Nag (24), Atul Netam (24), Ankit Nandi (31), and Domendra Yadav (21). Except for Salam, who is from Remawand in Narayanpur, others are from Bakhrupara.
Police have registered three FIRs under several sections of the Indian Penal Code for criminal conspiracy, attempt to murder on a government servant, assault on government servants, rioting, unlawful assembly, promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, criminal intimidation, deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class.
On Tuesday, citing security reasons, police stopped two BJP MPs Santosh Pandey and Mohan Mandavi and an MLA Shivratan Sharma from entering the city. State BJP chief spokesperson Ajay Chandrakar claimed they were stopped at Benoor police station when they were heading to Narayanpur to take a stock of the situation.
Meanwhile, unruly scenes were witnessed in the state Assembly on Tuesday as the saffron party legislators accused the ruling Congress government of turning a blind eye to religious conversions in the state.
Last month, a large number of people belonging to the Christian community staged a protest in front of the Collector’s office in Narayanpur alleging atrocities. Protestors from at least 14 villages in the tribal-dominated district had claimed that they had been assaulted and evicted from their homes for following Christianity, PTI reported.