Safalta Kartik, a visually impaired woman from Jabalpur, is on the verge of becoming a teacher after completing her final B.Ed exams – an achievement carved out through years of struggle against disability, poverty, and indifference. 

But last Saturday at the Prince of Peace Church in Jabalpur’s Kattanga area, Safalta was allegedly abused verbally, manhandled, and publicly humiliated by Anju Bhargav, the BJP’s district vice president, while attending a Christmas lunch with around 200 visually impaired students from the government-run Andhmukh School. Bhargav allegedly went so far as to say Safalta should be born blind even in her next life.

A video of the incident has recently gone viral on social media. However, no FIR has been filed so far, and when Newslaundry reached out to Neel Kamal, the SHO at Gorakhpur police station, he was unavailable for comment. 

Safalta, however, has told Newslaundry that she is in the process of filing an FIR. “I am discussing it with those close to me and will definitely file it,” she said.

A simple gathering that turned violent

For the past six years, Safalta has been attending Pastor Dharmendra Jena's Christmas lunch for visually impaired children in Jabalpur – a simple gathering she never imagined would one day invite hate, abuse, and physical assault.

Speaking to Newslaundry, Safalta said, “I have been coming to the Christmas lunch organised by Jena sir for the last six years. He organises it every year for blind children. This year, too, we received an invitation on Thursday to attend lunch on Saturday.”

Safalta went to the church along with her eight-year-old niece. She recalled, “We went there, listened to some songs and were sitting peacefully when suddenly I started hearing loud noises. My niece was sitting next to me when a woman approached her, held her hand and asked why she had come there.”

Safalta intervened immediately. She said, “I told her to talk to me, not to the child." That, Safalta alleged, triggered a volley of abuses.

“The woman started shouting at me, saying, 'Despite wearing sindoor, you have come to a church to convert. You seem to be into prostitution, and you have brought this child here for that’,” alleged Safalta. “She told me I was blind in this birth because of my past deeds and that I would be born blind again in my next life for coming to a church.”

When Safalta asked her to stop misbehaving, the woman allegedly turned violent. “She tried to grab my hand. I held hers to stop her, but she kept abusing me. Then she grabbed my mouth while shouting. I tried to push her hand away. Only then did someone intervene and stop it,” claimed Safalta.

Speaking to Newslaundry, Safalta rejected allegations of religious conversion and said she celebrates Christmas every year. Moreover, she said that she didn’t initially know the identity of the woman who abused her. 

“We are blind. We recognise people by their voices. It was only yesterday that we learned the woman who did this is a BJP leader. I don’t understand what she achieved by doing all this. People of different faiths live in our country. We celebrate each other’s festivals as one nation. What is wrong with celebrating Christmas?” she asked.

She also claimed that this was not just an attack on her. “What hurt me the most was that she mocked our blindness. She didn’t just target me; she shouted that all of us would be born blind again for attending a Christmas lunch,” alleged Safalta. 

Responding to these allegations, Bhargav told Newslaundry, “She (Safalta) brought that little girl there forcefully – that's why I intervened. She held me by hand, and she was the one who was hurling abuses.” When asked about the video where she is seen holding Safalta's mouth, she alleged, “That video is incomplete.”

When a mob interrupted Christmas

Dharmendra Jena, 37, the pastor who organised the event, said he has been hosting the Christmas lunch for visually impaired children for the last eight years, without any incident. 

“I organise this event every year to make blind children part of the Christmas celebration so that they don’t feel excluded. The idea is to make them feel happy and included in the mainstream. Small gifts such as walking sticks and Braille learning devices are distributed to children at these events,” he remarked.

According to him, the disturbance began around 1 pm when two or three people arrived at the church with two policemen and questioned the organisers about the presence of children at the church.

He recalled, “I told them clearly that the children had been invited for lunch as part of a Christmas celebration. They left after that. Sometime later, around 20 to 25 people barged into the church and started shouting that we were carrying out religious conversions. They even started questioning the children. Even the children tried to explain that they had come only to celebrate Christmas and have lunch, but the mob refused to listen.”

The situation escalated further when the station house officer of the Gorakhpur police station arrived at the scene. 

“The mob started asking who had organised the event. When they pointed towards me, some people came at me aggressively and hit me on my face,” Jena said.

He said the police then intervened and took him to the police station. 

“I was told I would be safe there. I was kept at the police station for several hours and released in the evening,” he added.

Jena also clarified that Safalta is not a student of Andhmukh School but is always invited because she is visually impaired. 

He said, “What happened with Safalta was unjust.”

“We were not carrying out any religious conversion; we only wanted visually impaired children to enjoy a meal together. Unfortunately, everything was disrupted, and those poor children couldn’t even have their lunch,” Jena added.

Calling for action, Safalta told Newslaundry that accountability was necessary not for herself alone, but for all the visually-impaired children who were traumatised. 

“I want action to be taken against her (Bhargav), not just because she abused or manhandled me, but because she cursed and made deeply humiliating remarks against all the blind children who were present there. The children have been traumatised,” she said.

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