The nuns, the State, and the machinery of suspicion: An account
The recent arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh under anti-conversion and NIA laws reveals the fictional limits of the Indian State’s persecution of religious freedom, all at the cost of due process.
Published on: 7 August 2025, 05:51 am
This is the first of a two part series on the recent arrest of two nuns in Chhattisgarh's Durg under unjustified charges of conversion.
IN A MATTER OF RELIEF, on August 2, 2025, bail was granted to the two Catholic nuns, Sr Preeti Mary, Sr. Vandana Francis and a tribal youth who was accompanying them in Chhattisgarh, Sukhman Mandavi. All evidence suggests that the arrests, made on July 25, were needless in nature.
On July 25,Sr Preeti Mary and Sr. Vandana Francis of the Congregation of Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate were arrested by the Chhattisgarh Government Railway Police (‘GRP’) in Durg Railway Station in Chhattisgarh on unfounded charges of religious conversion and human trafficking. A young man accompanying the nuns, Sukhman Mandavi, who hailed from a tribal community, was also detained.
The nuns, originally from Kerala, were waiting at the railway station platform with three other women, all of whom hailed from tribal communities and were aged between 18 to 20 years of age, to catch a train to Agra.Media reports suggest that when the Train Ticket Examiner enquired the three women regarding their tickets. On informing the TTE that their tickets were with the nuns, the TTE immediately called members of the Durga Vahini Matrushakti and Bajrang Dal, right-wing activist groups that have consistently engaged in harassing religious minorities in the country. Soon the nuns were surrounded, heckled and verbally abused, with a mob accusing them of forceful conversion and trafficking. This occurred even as the women and nuns reiterated that they were travelling to Agra to work in hospitals as helps at salaries of Rs 8,000 – 10,000 per month.
Police reports state that the women were being taken to Agra for vocational training and employment. The incident escalated into a standoff, with Bajrang Dal members staging protests outside the Government Railway Police station. Counter-protests soon followed, with the local Christian community defending the nuns.
This occurred even as the women and nuns reiterated that they were travelling to Agra to work in hospitals as helps at salaries of Rs 8,000 – 10,000 per month.
The FIR, registered under sections of the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act and the Immoral Traffic (Prevention) Act, was based on a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal worker, who alleged that the accused forcibly converted three women from Narayanpur district and were attempting to traffic them.
Even though the police arrived while the right-wing group workers were heckling and intimidating the group, they did not intervene to stop the intimidation of the nuns. The trio (the two nuns and the youth) were then arrested and taken to the Durg Police station. Then, a local court sent them to judicial custody till August 8.
They were charged under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023 , the Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Act and the National Investigation Agency (NIA) Act.
According to the FIR, charges include:
Section 143 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) – Trafficking of person
Section 4 of the Chhattisgarh Freedom of Religion Act – Unlawful Conversions