On the morning of July 25, 2025, what should have been an unremarkable train journey erupted into a national flashpoint. 

Two Malayali Catholic nuns in their fifties, Preethi Mary and Vandana Francis, and an Adivasi man from Chhattisgarh, Sukhman Mandavi, were accompanying three Adivasi women headed to Agra for domestic work at the Durg railway station. A person affiliated with the Bajrang Dal – the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) – noticed the group. 

He filed a police complaint accusing Mary, Francis, and Mandavi of human trafficking and religious conversion. By that evening, Chhattisgarh’s Government Railway Police had apprehended them and filed a First Information Report (FIR). 

Family members of the three women travelling to Agra rejected the trafficking claims and said that they had left with their consent. Two among the three women stated that they had been adherents of Christianity for several years. One of the women alleged that the police had tampered with her statement to falsely implicate the nuns and Mandavi, relying instead on information provided by Bajrang Dal members. 

The arrests triggered a political storm. Within the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), they revealed ideological doublespeak. On the one hand, BJP politicians in Kerala – where the party is attempting to court Christian voters – made a public display of supporting the nuns. On the other, Chhattisgarh’s Chief Minister, BJP leader Vishnu Deo Sai referred to the case as one of “human trafficking under the guise of conversion by luring” that concerned “the safety of our daughters”. 

After more than a week in custody, the nuns and Mandavi were granted bail by a National Investigation Agency court, which observed that the FIR against them was “primarily based on a mere apprehension and suspicion of commission of an offence”. 

But the case exemplified a troubling pattern: the growing – and frequently violent – persecution of Christian Adivasis in Chhattisgarh. 

Between January and July 2025 alone, there have been 53 reported cases of violence against Christians in the state, according to the Chhattisgarh-based community organisation Progressive Christian Alliance (PCA). Most of these incidents can be traced back to Hindutva organisations such as the VHP and Bajrang Dal.

Through interviews with nearly two dozen people from Chhattisgarh – those targeted by the violence, police officials, lawyers, and activists – Newslaundry found that the Hindu-right’s long standing bogey of forced conversions has made everyday life unsafe for Christians in the state.

Vigilante mobs regularly disrupt prayer services and vandalise churches. In some villages, gram sabhas have evicted Christian farmers from their lands because of their faith. In others, Christians have been denied the right to a burial within their communities. Multiple people told Newslaundry that they were socially ostracised. At times, they were also assaulted. Photos reviewed by Newslaundry showed public boards in at least three villages that prohibited the entry of pastors and “converted people from other villages”. 

Interviews with Christians who had been targeted suggest that state police officials were slow to investigate their complaints and register FIRs. In at least two FIRs reviewed by Newslaundry, the police excluded details that indicated communal motives. Yet, officials acted swiftly on accusations of forced conversions, even when these claims seemed to have little basis in fact. 

“Organisations like the VHP and Bajrang Dal are spreading hate purely for political gains,” said Simon Tandi, coordinator of the PCA and a pastor. “They are deliberately creating rifts between communities by peddling a dangerous narrative, that Christianity will destroy the culture and rituals of the tribal community.” This narrative had taken deep root in villages, he added, fuelling hostilities towards Christian Adivasis. 

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The Indian Constitution guarantees citizens the freedom to profess, practice, and propagate their religion. But the law appears to have offered little relief to Christians enduring harassment in Chhattisgarh. 

In the case involving the Malayali nuns and Mandavi, one of the women travelling to Agra alleged that Jyoti Sharma – a member of the VHP’s women’s wing, Durga Vahini – threatened her at the police station and struck her in the face. “She said that if you do not follow what we say, we will put your siblings in jail and assault them,” the woman told the Indian Express. In a video clip circulating on social media, Sharma can be seen telling one of the nuns, “If you don’t speak, I’ll smash your face, I’m telling you.”

Newslaundry found that Sharma has been accused of such harassment before. In November 2021, she was allegedly part of a mob of over 30 people, which forced its way into the house of a Christian woman praying with a group. The mob upturned the house, beat up women and children, and robbed about Rs 60,000 from a contribution box, according to a court petition related to this case. Sharma is listed as “absconding” in the petition. The FIR in the 2021 case, accessed by Newslaundry, was registered at the same station as the one in which Sharma threatened the nuns this July.