Kerala nuns to continue in Chhattisgarh jail, NIA court to pronounce judgement on bail plea today

Durg: The two nuns from Kerala who were arrested in Chhattisgarh for alleged human trafficking will remain in jail on Friday, as the NIA Court in Bilaspur has reserved its judgment on their bail plea. Manorama News reported that the court will pronounce its verdict on the bail petitions of the nuns, Preethy Mary and Vandana Francis, on Saturday. The judgement was reserved after the prosecution representing the Chhattisgarh government opposed the bail plea.

"The prosecution opposed the bail plea, submitting that the case is in its initial stage of investigation. The court has reserved its order till tomorrow (Saturday) after hearing both the parties," public prosecutor Dauram Chandravanshi told reporters.

Defence lawyer Amrito Das said the prosecution had not asked for their custody for interrogation, and the alleged victims have been sent back to their homes. "They are all major, and have been following Christianity already, so the allegation of conversion is false," he said, citing his arguments in the court.

The parents of the three women have told police that their daughters were not being taken away forcibly or fraudulently, he added.

The hearing took place before Principal District and Sessions Judge (NIA court) Sirajuddin Qureshi. The NIA court directed the special public prosecutor to produce the case diary for detailed examination.

Sister Preethy Mary and Sister Vandana Francis belong to the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate, a Syro-Malabar congregation based in Alappuzha. They had been working at a hospital in Agra.

On July 26, the two nuns, along with Sukhman Mandavi, were escorting three women from Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district to Agra for employment at a convent when they were stopped at a railway station by Bajrang Dal activists. The group was later detained by police and produced before a local court, which remanded them to judicial custody.

The nuns, currently housed in Durg jail, submitted their bail plea to the NIA court as directed by a sessions court.

On Friday, a delegation from the All India Congress Committee (AICC) in Kerala arrived in Durg to meet the two nuns. Members of the delegation alleged that the Durg sessions court’s decision to refer the case to the NIA court was a conspiracy to delay bail.

The arrest of the Kerala-based nuns has sparked a political row, with the Congress and CPM strongly criticising the move. Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, however, accused the opposition of "politicising the matter."

A victim in the alleged human trafficking and forced conversion case claimed she was coerced and assaulted by Bajrang Dal activists into giving a false statement — a charge denied by the right-wing outfit.

She also alleged that the police did not properly record her statement. The 21-year-old, Kamleshwari Pradhan, stated that her family has been following Christianity for the past four to five years.