Probe against Mother Teresa charity in India over 'forced conversion'

INDIAN law-keepers have initiated an investigation against a charity which was started by Mother Teresa, official sources on Tuesday (14) revealed on grounds of ‘forced conversion’ of girls.

AFP, which reported the incident, cited authorities in the western Indian state of Gujarat saying that they were probing whether the Missionaries of Charity, which was founded by the late Mother, a Roman Catholic nun, in 1950, forced girls in its shelter home there to don a cross and read the Bible. The organisation is headquartered in Kolkata in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal.

Gujarat, which is the home state of prime minister Narendra Modi, is one of the several states in the country where allegations of forced conversion have come up a number of times in recent years.

Mayank Trivedi, a district-level social defence officer, told AFP that his complaint to the police was based on a report by child-welfare authorities and other officials.

A first-information report was lodged on the basis of the complaint of Trivedi, who, along with the chairman of the child welfare committee of the district, visited the Home for Girls run by the charity in Makarpura area of the city of Vadodara on December 9, the Indian Express reported.

The charity was booked under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act 2003 for allegedly “hurting Hindu religious sentiments” and “luring towards Christianity young girls”. The organisation rubbished the allegation.

According to the complaint lodged by Trivedi and others, 13 Bibles were found in the library of the institute and the girls staying there were forced to read the religious text, AFP added.

Activists criticised the incident saying religious minorities in India have faced more discrimination and violence during the rule of Modi’s Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which came to power in 2014.

In 2020, the US Commission on International Religious Freedom listed India as a “country of particular concern” for the first time since 2004.

The activists have said that more than 300 anti-Christian incidents have been reported this year alone.

Last week, a Hindu mob comprising 200 to 300 people stormed into a Christian school in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh when the students were taking their examinations and pelted stones at the building, leaving them traumatised.