India’s Supreme Court has granted interim bail to a Christian educator, who was arrested in December on a slew of complaints including attempts to murder and violating an anti-conversion law.
A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud, on March 4 ordered the release of Rajendra Bihari Lal, vice-chancellor of the Sam Higginbottom University of Agriculture, Technology and Sciences (SHAUTS).
The British-era institution was established in 1910 and is based in Prayagraj, formerly Allahabad, in northern Indian Uttar Pradesh state.
The state police arrested Lal on Dec. 31, 2023, following a complaint from Diwakar Nath Tripathi, a local leader of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, which runs the state government.
Earlier, Lal’s bail pleas were turned down by a local court and the state high court.
“We direct by way of an ad interim order that the petitioner be released on interim bail,” the Supreme Court order said.
Police have registered several cases against Lal under the state’s strident anti-conversion law that criminalizes religious conversion without prior sanction from the government.
In the latest case registered in Naini police station in Prayagraj district, Lal is accused of attempting to kill the complainant, Tripathi.
Tripathi’s complaint said two men who accompanied Lal in a vehicle opened fire at him while he was returning home after a morning walk.
“It is a baseless and fabricated case,” a close ally of Lal told UCA News on March 5.
“Lal is targeted for his religion” he noted.
The police at the behest of their political masters have made several attempts to put Lal behind bars, he added.
In October last year, Lal’s brother, Vinod Bihari Lal, who is a director of the university, was arrested in a case of alleged attempted murder.
The Lal brothers and other university officials are facing several criminal cases, including religious conversion and sexual exploitation of a woman, a former staff member.
The top court in the country on Dec. 19 restrained police from arresting Lal in connection with the sexual exploitation case.
The university, earlier known as the Allahabad Agricultural Institute, was founded by American Presbyterian missioner Sam Higginbottom.
During his stay in India, Higginbottom helped introduce modern cultivation methods in India. He was close to Mahatma Gandhi and the first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru.
In 1947, when British colonial rule ended, the institute was brought under a board of directors, representing 14 Christian denominations, including the Catholic Church.
However, the university is now under the control of the Lal brothers.
Uttar Pradesh, the most populous state in India, records the highest number of persecution cases against Christians, according to the United Christian Forum.
The forum, a New Delhi-based ecumenical group that records persecution, said from January to November 2023, the state accounted for 287 incidents.
Christians are a tiny minority in the state forming about 0.18 percent of the Hindu-majority state’s more than 200 million people.
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