US national, 2 others held for religious conversion bid in Maharashtra's Thane

Three people, including a US national, were arrested on Saturday for allegedly attempting to convert to Christianity residents of a village in Maharashtra's Thane district, police said.

The arrests were made based on a complaint lodged by a villager, who claimed that the accused had held a gathering outside a resident's house in the Chimbipada area of Bhiwandi on Friday afternoon, an official said.

As per the first information report (FIR), books on Christianity were allegedly distributed to men, women, and children gathered at the spot and prayers were recited. The accused also allegedly told villagers that conversion would cure them of their ailments, he said.

The police have arrested James Watson (58), a US national, Sainath Ganpati Sarpe (42), a resident of Vasai, and Manoj Kolha (35), outside whose house the meeting was held, the official said.

The trio have been booked under sections 299 (deliberate and malicious intention of outraging the religious feelings of any class of citizens of India), 302 (uttering words etc, with a delibrate intent to wound religious feelings of any person), and other relevant provisions of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, the Foreigners Act and Maharashtra Prevention and Eradication of Human Sacrifice and other Inhuman, Evil and Aghori Practices and Black Magic Act, 2013, he said.

The local police are probing further into the incident, the official said.