A case of alleged religious conversion was registered in Kota on Thursday night under provisions of the recently enacted Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2025, as well as sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, after two Christian missionaries were detained following a complaint by members of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal.
According to the Police, the missionaries, identified as Chandi Varghese from Delhi and Arun John from Kota, were accused of inviting local residents to the Beersheba Church on Canal Road between 4 and 6 November, where they were alleged to have conducted a spiritual discourse and the alleged religious conversion, and the complainants submitted videos and other material that they claimed supported their allegations.
The police initiated action after examining the complaint, and the case was filed under Section 299 of the BNS for hurting religious sentiments, while additional charges were invoked under Sections 3 and 5 of the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2025, which define unlawful conversion and prescribe punishments for attempts or inducements to convert.
The event in question had been streamed live on social media, and the police considered this among the factors warranting further inquiry, as the digital broadcast was treated as part of the evidence presented by the complainants.
The Rajasthan government had notified the new anti-conversion law on 29 October, making religious conversion a non-bailable offence and introducing stringent penalties for violations, and the present case has become one of the earliest to be registered since the law came into effect.