MUMBAI, India – In India, two anti-Christian incidents in the state of Odisha have disturbed the peace-loving Christian community, which has already been traumatized by harassment by right-wing extremists.

On Sunday, Sister Rachana Nayak was travelling with four women candidates and two male youths from Odisha when she was intercepted by Bajrang Dal activists on a train.

The Christians were asked to disembark at Khurda, near Bhubaneswar, amid allegations of “conversion activities.”  The suspected Bajrang Dal activists forced them off the train and they were detained for 18 hours at a police station in Odisha on fabricated charges of trafficking in women and illegal conversions.

Nayak was released after she proved that her six companions were all Christians by birth and were travelling for enrolment in training courses.

“They had boarded the Rajya Rani Express from Berhampur on Saturday evening. One of the young men happened to be the nun’s younger brother,” Sister Sujata Jena, an advocate on the team of Women Lawyers who rescued them, told Crux.

“They were headed for Jharsuguda, from where they planned to travel to Chhattisgarh where the girls would have received training in various skills and in spoken English,” she said.

Jena said the four young women had been selected through a rigorous process of career counselling, and all of them were Catholics.

“Some people began heckling them on the train and accused the nun of involvement in religious conversions,” she said.

“As soon as the train reached Khurda Junction around 11 pm on Saturday, around 30 people gathered and began abusing the nun and the four girls. They forced the entire group off the train,” Jena said.

“Apart from religious conversions, they accused the nun of trafficking in women. The Railway Protection Force intervened and took all of them to the police station,” she continued.

“They pleaded they were all Christians, and that the nun had nothing to do with religious conversions, but no one listened to them,” Jena added.

She said the women’s lawyer got to know about the matter on Sunday morning and rushed to Khurda.

“During the investigation, it came out that all those detained were aged above 18 except for one girl, who was 17. All of them are literate,” she said.

“All of them have now been released with full security and without any charges. The police treated them with dignity,” she clarified.

Jena said the women’s parents arrived at the police station and took them back to their villages, unwilling after the ordeal to let them go on to Chhattisgarh. The two young men also left for home.

Nayak was escorted to Bhubaneswar.

Catholic Church sources in Delhi said that apart from written parental consent and baptism certificates, members travelling with girls had been advised to carry “a letter of admission to a senior secondary school to prove they are travelling for higher education.”

The earlier incident involved a 90-year-old priest, Father Leenus Puthanveetil, and a 45-year-old unnamed priest who were brutally assaulted at a boys’ hostel in Charwatiya in Odisha on May 23. The attackers broke into the priests’ residence, tied them up, brutally beat them for hours, and robbed them. They also threatened to return.

Puthanveetil, who is under treatment at a hospital, said the attackers put a knife against his neck before slapping him and tying him up. His fellow priest was brutally beaten by the attackers in front of him.

Bishop Niranjan Singh asked Crux if robbery is the motive, “why are our clergy being assaulted?”

“I strongly condemn this… The law must take its course,” he said, affirmed he had filed a police report about the incident.

“Two incidents in Odisha are causing much anguish among the people, this recent news of the young candidates being interrogated by right-wing activists – on the train and made to de-board – is disturbing and alarming,” the bishop said.

“This should not happen – we’re law-abiding citizens. The constitution gives us the freedom to move anywhere.  This has pained us,” he told Crux.