Morning Star News India Correspondent
Morning Star News
Friday, August 11, 2023
🚈 More About This Source Here!!
Police in central India on July 26 beat a Christian educator and filed baseless charges against him of human trafficking and fraudulent conversion of eight Christian students he was escorting to a Bible institute, sources said.
After arresting Liju Kuriakose off of a bus in Manikpur, Chhattisgarh state, police officers told the students, including five minors, to give false statements that they were being trafficked, said one of the youths, a 17-year-old identified only as Govardhan.
“We all had vehemently refused and told the police that we have been Christians for a while and are not new converts,” Govardhan told Morning Star News. “We cannot tell lies about the brother who came all the way from Kerala to help us. When their attempts failed, police sent us to the Child Welfare Committee’s home.”
Kuriakose had come from Kerala state to ensure the safe travel of the students, ages 15 to 22 and all from tribal Christian families. They had boarded the bus in Manikpur bound for a railway station in Bilaspur, where they were to take a train to the Bible institute in Kochi, Kerala state, Govardhan said.
“All eight of us had secured admission in a Bible institute in Kochi, Kerala, and brother Liju came to take us for our own safety,” Govardhan told Morning Star News. “At around 10:30 a.m., after we boarded the bus, one man appearing to be a passenger caught hold of brother Liju and commanded the bus driver to stop the bus at Manikpur police station.”
–
Always Something: Not Your New Normal!! 