By Scroll Staff
A video showing a Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Madhya Pradesh’s Jabalpur assaulting a visually impaired woman inside a church, accusing her of carrying out religious conversion, triggered a row in the state on Monday.
The assault took place on Saturday at a church in the Hawa Bagh area under the Gorakhpur police station, reported The New Indian Express.
In the video, the BJP’s Jabalpur city unit Vice President Anju Bhargava is seen shouting at the woman in the presence of a police officer.
Bhargava is seen abusing the woman, twisting her arm and grabbing her face. The woman is heard asking Bhargava to speak to her instead of assaulting her.
The BJP leader is also heard telling the woman that she “will be blind in her next birth too”.
Bhargava had entered the church with members of several Hindutva organisations, alleging that visually impaired children were being coerced into religious conversion, reported The Indian Express on Tuesday.
Police officials told the newspaper that the gathering had been organised by Christian organisations as part of Christmas celebrations.
Visually impaired students were invited from a government-run hostel for lunch and a prayer meet.
The students denied that any religious conversions had taken place during the gathering. An unidentified police officer was also quoted as saying by The Indian Express that there was “no evidence of forced conversion”.
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