Karnataka: Pastor’s family booked for conversion of Dalits to Christianity; his son booked for rape of minor

Ballari: An incident of conversion of Dalits to Christianity has come to the fore in Karnataka’s Ballari area. A pastor’s family has been booked for the alleged conversion of Dalits in the area. The pastor’s 17-year-old son has been accused of sexually assaulting a minor from the backward community. Pastor Samuel and his wife have been sent to judicial custody while their son has been sent to a remand home in Ballari.

The pastor has been accused of converting Dalits by offering cash to the backward community people.

While narrating the conversion episode, one of the alleged victim claimed that pastor used to take them to the church and then baptise them. She claimed that she along with her husband were taken to the church where they were baptised in the name of Jesus, son of God.

She accuse the pastor of telling them not to pray to their Gods or else demons will take hold of them.

The woman claimed that pastor’s words fear in them and they threw away the idols of their Gods. She claimed that he pastor and his family used to call their daughter to the church.

She claimed that her daughter was given a printout of something and was asked to sing.

Earlier, we used to pray to Sunkalamma and Mariamma. They told us to leave them saying those Gods won’t do anything to you, and to believe in Jesus, the alleged victim claimed.

The pastor’s son has also been accused of having sexual relations with the woman’s daughter on the pretext of marrying her. The woman claimed that the pastor’s family convince them that they would marry her daughter to their son, but that did not happened and instead the boy raped her.

She accused the pastor’s son to call her daughter alone two to three times at different places but could not physically assault her for.

Narrating the sequence if incidents, the mother claimed that the pastor’s son called her daughter once to the church, however, as many people came to the church he himself then dropped her back home.

Next time he took her to the big church. There also two people came towards them with a torch., following which he again dropped the girl back. One more time he took her to a bushy area near the church. Since, there were lot of thorns in the area, he told her again to go back home, she claimed.

The mother accused the pastor’s son to grab her daughter inside their house. She claimed that when her daughter objected to such acts, he told her that he would marry her when she turns 18.

Courtesy : Times now news

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