The Madhya Pradesh Police last week issued notices to church office-bearers in Indore asking them about involvement in religious conversion, but withdrew the notices after community members objected to them, PTI reported on Sunday.
Forty office-bearers of churches and religious organisations got the notices, an official from one such organisation said.
Suresh Kalton of the United Christian Forum said that the notices asked the office-bearers to declare whether they or their organisations were involved in religious conversion. “This act of the police is a violation of our constitutional rights,” he said. “None of us is involved in such activities and we will go to the High Court against these notices.”
Kalton said that there are 60,000 Christians in Indore and many of them are involved in social welfare activities pertaining to health and education.
Indore Police Commissioner Makrand Deuskar said that the notices were sent to the station house officers of all police stations in the city, and that they sent them to church office bearers “by mistake”, PTI reported.
“Hence, the notices have been withdrawn after opposition by the community members,” he told reporters.
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