Indian bishop gets bail in conversion case

(March 19, 2010) A court in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on Wednesday granted bail to Christians, including a bishop, accused of violating the state’s anti-conversion law. “The truth is vindicated,” Bishop Mathew Vaniakizhakkel of Satna in Madhya Pradesh state told UCA News after the court verdict later in the day. Local police had charged the bishop, two priests, a nun and two people for violating the non-bailable sections of the state’s stringent anti-conversion law. Father Jolly Konnukodan, assistant parish priest of Satna’s St. Vincent Cathedral and one of the accused, told UCA News the prosecution could not produce any evidence to prove the allegation. The case arose after Christopher Pavy complained to police March 9 that the bishop and others had solemnized the marriage of a woman after converting her to Catholicism in May 2009.