Days after the Chhattisgarh Police arrested three persons, including two Keralite nuns, on charges of trafficking and forcibly converting a few tribal women, the latter’s family members have denied the police claim.
The kin said the women accompanied the nuns and a man from Narayanpur of their own volition, and that they are innocent.
However, Chief Minister Vishnu Deo Sai, on Monday (July 28, 2025), backed the arrests, saying that “through inducement, an attempt was being made [by the arrested persons] to engage in human trafficking and conversion”.
The arrest sparked widespread protests from Delhi to Kerala on Monday (July 28, 2025).
Nuns Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis, and Sukaman Mandavi from Narayanpur were arrested on July 25 after a local Bajrang Dal member, Ravi Nigam, filed a complaint with the police, saying that Mr. Mandavi had brought three women to the Durg railway station, from where they had to go to Agra with the two nuns.
