Supreme Court says no arresting the Lal brothers from northern Uttar Pradesh ‘pending further orders’
Activists and members representing the Christian community chant prayers during a peaceful protest rally in New Delhi on Feb. 19 protesting what they termed an increase in violence against Christians in various states of the country, i. (Photo by Arun Sankar/AFP)
India’s Supreme Court has restrained police from arresting two Christian educators in a case that accuses them of involving in mass conversion in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.
The state’s Allahabad High Court earlier denied anticipatory bail to Rajendra Bihari Lal, the vice chancellor of Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences, and his brother, Vinod Bihari Lal, who serves as the director at the university.
However, a three-judge bench of the Supreme Court headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud on March 3 ordered the Uttar Pradesh police not to arrest the duo “pending further orders.”
The bench in its brief order sought a reply from the state government to the bail application filed by the Lal brothers and posted it for further hearing on March 24.
The top court took cognizance of the petition as an urgent matter as the duo was summoned by the police for interrogation in connection with the alleged mass conversion case registered in April 2022.
In their application, the Lal brothers said that they were neither present at the location of the alleged crime nor involved with it directly or indirectly.
They were also not named in the initial complaint but were summoned by the police for interrogation eight months later.
The Lal brothers further claimed that their names were dragged into the alleged mass conversion case based on confessional statements by two persons, one of them a disgruntled employee and another a student who was rusticated for sexually harassing another student.
The police initiated action after a mob of Hindu nationalists targeted a Maundy Thursday prayer service at the Evangelic Church of India in Harihar Ganj in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur district on April 14, 2022, alleging that Christians were converting Hindus.The mob locked the gates of the church until police arrived and filed cases against 55 Christians.
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