Ten Catholics who were arrested after they chased a group of Hindu activists out of a village church during Mass in India’s desert state of Rajasthan returned home on the night of Aug. 13, more than 100 days after they were jailed.
“We are happy and relieved as our people have been released after being imprisoned for over 100 days on false charges,” Bishop Devprasad John Ganawa of Udaipur, a Divine Word missionary, told EWTN News on Aug. 17.
Hindu activists barged into the church and disrupted the Mass at Communion time on the evening of May 1 in the remote village of Kalinjara, in Banswara district in southern Rajasthan, shouting accusations of “conversion.” Catholics confronted the intruders and chased them out.
Instead of registering a criminal case against the intruders, police in the state, which is governed by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), charged the Catholics with “conversion and attempt to murder” and arrested members of Bandaria Parish on the nights of May 1 and May 3. Ten were held in judicial custody.
Father Arvind Amliyar, the parish priest, told EWTN News in May that the group entered during Communion and began filming and that one of the men drew a knife before parishioners took it from him and forced the group out.
Members of a Hindu Sena group said they had acted on information about alleged cow slaughter and conversion activity, according to Catholic Connect, a news platform of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India. The Banswara district superintendent of police said days after the incident that the situation was under control and that an investigation was underway, with evidence collected from the scene, the outlet reported. Police did not confirm the parish’s allegation that officers had refused to register its complaint.
“Our people are victims of the anti-conversion law. Our legal team pursued the case after bail was denied by the district court. We thank God that they are now out of jail,” Ganawa said.
Under the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, which took effect in 2025, the burden of proof rests on those accused of causing a conversion, who must show that it was not unlawful. As in several other BJP-ruled states, that reversal has made bail difficult to obtain in the lower courts.
The act is under challenge in India’s Supreme Court, which in November 2025 issued notice to the Rajasthan government on petitions contesting its constitutionality, including one brought by the Jaipur Catholic Welfare Society.
‘A day of great joy’
“It was certainly a day of great joy for us,” said Amliyar, who was celebrating Mass when the May 1 incident occurred. He was at the Kushalgarh jail to receive the men after the Aug. 12 bail order from the Rajasthan High Court reached the jail the following day.
“Our people were thrilled to receive them at the church,” said Amliyar, who had been traveling back and forth to the legal team on behalf of his distant parishioners.
“We thank the Lord for our bail after 104 days,” one of the released Catholics told EWTN News on Aug. 17. His identity is being withheld because of legal restrictions.
“All of us spent days in jail praying. But since we were kept in different cells, we could not pray together. But the Lord took care of us. None of us had any sickness in the jail,” he said.
“The days we spent in jail did not frustrate us. It has only strengthened us in faith,” he added, while thanking all those who prayed for their release and those who worked for it.
A pattern of arrests
Human rights defenders point out that anti-conversion laws are misused against Christian and Muslim minorities, with hundreds arrested under the laws but hardly any convictions.
In a similar case, Father Babu Francis, director of the Diocesan Development and Welfare Society of Allahabad Diocese in Uttar Pradesh state, was detained by police on Oct. 1, 2023, when he went to find out why his driver had been taken from his house by police.
Police were looking for the driver’s brother, a pastor, against whom a Hindu activist had filed a case of “conversion” for conducting prayers in a house. Unable to find the pastor, they took the driver from a nearby house to the police station. The eldest of the three brothers rushed to the station and was also detained, and the driver’s son-in-law was arrested when he went to question the detentions.
The driver’s wife slipped away from the police station during the argument and called Father Francis, who rushed there. Three hours later, the priest was also arrested, and all of them were charged with conversion and even “attempt to murder.”
The Allahabad High Court released the priest on bail 82 days later, just before Christmas 2023.
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