by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Eight Christians in India falsely accused of trying to forcibly convert children to Christianity were acquitted after a two-and-a-half-year legal battle that saw them imprisoned for months.
Six men and two women were arrested at a train station in Ratlam in May 2017 while chaperoning a group of 60 children, all of whom had consent from parents, to Bible camp, and charged with attempting to coerce them into Christian faith.
“Justice has finally been done,” Tehmina Arora of Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) India told Asia News. “[However], we must not forget the impact that similar false cases have on families. Nobody should be targeted for their faith. Anti-conversion laws are tools to harass and target Christians and should be repealed because they limit the freedom of religion guaranteed by the Constitution of India.”
Persecution of Christians in India has skyrocketed since the election of Narendra Modi and the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in 2014, the once-tolerant country is now number 10 on Open Doors USA's World Watch List.