Church prayer meet attended by US nationals stopped after HYV protest

THE US NATIONALS, INCLUDING WOMEN, WERE ALLOWED TO LEAVE LATER

A mass, attended by over 150 people including 11 US nationals, in a church at Dathauli village of Maharajganj district, was stopped mid-way by police after the right-wing Hindu Yuva Vahini (HYV) accused the church priests of converting Hindus to Christians.

The church authorities rejected the conversion charges.

“Mass is held here often but since this time foreigners were involved, the HYV suspected conversion was going on. We stopped the prayer on their complaint but after investigation found no conversion was being carried out there,” said Anand Kumar Gupta, SHO, Dathauli.

The US nationals, including women, were allowed to leave after police and LIU teams checked their documents, Gupta said. As per reports, several HYV activists, led by its district coordinator Krishna Nandan, surrounded the church building after making a complaint to the police around noon on Friday.

The HVY had given a written complaint against Yuhannan Adam, pastor of the church.

“The presence of US nationals indicates that innocent and illiterate Hindus were being converted by the church missionaries, who offered them money for changing their religion,” said Nandan who also protested the letting off of the US nationals by police.

Denying the HYV charge, pastor Adam said: “The charges are absolutely baseless as people were attending the prayer meeting voluntarily.

Barring Yeshu’s (Jesus Christ’s) worship nothing else happened here.”

Earlier this year, HYV worker had attacked the Full Gospel Church in Gorakhpur after accusing the church authorities of carrying out conversion.