Bilaspur, Aug. 2 -- A special court in Chhattisgarh's Bilaspur district on Saturday granted bail to three persons, including two nuns from Kerala, arrested on charges of human trafficking and forced religious conversion, lawyers said. Principal District and Sessions Judge (NIA court) Sirajuddin Qureshi had reserved the order on their bail pleas after a hearing on Friday. The court has granted conditional bail to the trio, defence lawyer Amrito Das said.
Catholic nuns Preethi Merry and Vandana Francis, both from Kerala, along with Sukaman Mandavi, were arrested at the Durg railway station on July 25, following a complaint from a local Bajrang Dal functionary, who accused them of forcibly converting three girls from Narayanpur and trafficking them, a railway police official had said. Following the bail hearing on Friday, Das had said that the prosecution had not asked for the trio's custody for interrogation, and the alleged victims had been sent back to their homes.
Published by HT Digital Content Services with permission from Millennium Post.