How laws against ‘magical healing’ are being used to target church workers in Assam

In January 2021, Pranjal Bhuyan, a 38-year-old pastor in Assam’s Golaghat district received a “distress” call from a Hindu family in a neighbouring village.

One of the family members was ill and bed-ridden. They asked the pastor to visit them and pray for his recovery. “They had heard from someone that we Christians pray for the sick,” said Bhuyan, who is associated with the 126-year-old Golaghat Baptist Church.

Bhuyan travelled to Lothagoan village, a settlement of caste Assamese Hindus. “The patient was seriously ill,” he said.

Before he prayed for the sick man, Bhuyan said, he sought a go-ahead from the family members. “I asked them if other villagers would object to my praying as I am a Christian,” he said. “They said nothing will happen and asked me to proceed.”

In a few months, Bhuyan said the person recovered a little and was able to sit up. “It was a miracle,” he said. “I am not a doctor, I only prayed. This shows that God is there.”

Since then, Bhuyan kept going back to the home of the Assamese Hindu family. “A relationship was built and they also invited me during Bihu,” he said.

Even then, Bhuyan said, there were rumours that he had done “jhora-phuka” or black magic. Some villagers alleged he had “cured” the man in order to convert the family to Christianity.

In October, Bhuyan got a call from two men, who asked him to meet them in Dergaon, the town where Golaghat Baptist Church is located.

“I went there and they accused me of converting people forcefully,” he said. “They said they would tear my clothes and beat me up. I asked them to go to the police if they had proof.”

A month later, on November 19, Jayanta Bora, a resident of Lothagaon – the village where Bhuyan had gone to pray for the ill person – filed a complaint with Golaghat police seeking action against “evangelist Pranjal Bhuyan” for allegedly “using inducements to convert people, especially juveniles to Christianity”.

Bhuyan became the first person to be booked – and then arrested a few days later – under the Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Act, 2024. He is currently out on bail.

A new law

The legislation, passed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party government in February 2024, was aimed at countering “non-scientific healing practices with ulterior motives”, which are used to exploit “innocent people”. But while tabling the bill in the state Assembly, Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said its purpose was to “curb evangelism” and “fraudulent magical healing practices” in the name of treatment.

“Magical healing is a dicey subject used to convert tribal people,” Sarma had said. “We are going to pilot this bill because we believe the religious status quo is very important for a proper balance. Let Muslims remain Muslims, Christians remain Christians, Hindus remain Hindus.”

At the time, leaders of the Assam Christian Forum had sharply countered the claim that “magical healing” was being used to lure people to change their faith. “Our numerous dispensaries and hospitals operate within the recognised medical frameworks, providing essential services to the sick,” a statement by the forum said.

Bhuyan’s arrest, leaders of the Christian community in Assam told Scroll, confirms their fear that the provisions of the law will increasingly be used to harass and imprison them.

They pointed out that in the last 24 months, the charge of using “magic healing” to convert people has been made against several pastors – under an older law – and police cases were filed against them.

As Scroll found out, in at least two cases, cases were filed against church workers even after they had addressed a Christian audience. In some instances, the police initiated the complaints on their own, while in others they filed cases at the behest of Hindutva groups.

‘Atmosphere of intimidation’

Bhuyan was booked under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to outraging religious feelings, criminal breach of trust, cheating and the Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Act, 2024.

Jayanta Bora, the complainant, told Scroll that Bhuyan “lured the Hindus for conversion by giving English classes”.

“I don’t have any personal grudge against him,” Bora said. “In our village, all people are Hindus. We don’t go to other [villages] with the motive of religious conversion [like Bhuyan].”

Bhuyan contested the FIR. “It has been three years but I have not told the family to convert, nor have they converted to Christianity,” he said. “They still go to temples and the namghar.”

On November 28, the Assam Christian Forum convened an emergency meeting in Guwahati, where it expressed “shock, pain, and anguish over the relentless attacks on the Christian community, its institutions, and individuals over the past year”.

“The police have been conducting investigations against the church and individuals in Karbi Anglong, Dima Hasao, Goalpara, and other areas, which has created an atmosphere of fear and intimidation,” the forum said in a statement.

“Since the enactment of this law [Assam Magical Healing (Prevention and Evil) Act], innocent church personnel and believers have been harassed and booked for praying for the sick and their well-being or even helping the poor and marginalised to cope with their studies,” Allen Brooks, spokesperson of the forum told Scroll. “This is also a clear infringement of their constitutional rights.”

Primingson Millick, secretary of the United Christian Forum of Assam’s Karbi Anglong, said: “The allegation is that Bhuyan was trying to forcefully convert people through praying. But praying to God to heal someone is not exclusive to Christians. What makes you call praying for the sick an evil practice? ”

Difference between old and new laws

The Assam Healing (Prevention of Evil) Practices Act, 2024 criminalises the commission of any act of “inhuman, evil or magical healing” and black magic. It defines “evil practices” as “commission of any act of healing practices and magical healing, by any person, with a sinister motive to exploit common people.”

The over-broad definition of such practices was flagged when the bill was tabled. Akhil Gogoi, an independent MLA from Assam, had questioned the vagueness of the terms “evil practices” and “healing and healing practices”.

“Healing includes many things – therapeutic massage, prayers, songs and dances, traditional plant medicine, culturally sensitive and supportive counselling,” he had said. “Will the works of the oja and the bez – the soothsayer and the medicine man – come under the law?”

The law provides a penalty of imprisonment of one year to three years, along with a fine of Rs 50,000. For repeat offences, the proposed penalty is of up to five years, along with a fine of Rs 1 lakh. It also makes the offences non-bailable.

Assam already had a law against spurious healing practices and quack doctors – the Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act, 1954.

The new law gives more teeth to the police as it gives a police officer (not below the rank of sub-inspector) the power to enter any premises and inspect any practices where he has “reason to believe” that an offence under this Act has been or is likely to be committed.

Under the 1954 law, any gazetted officer authorised by the state government had the power to carry out such inspections.

Church leaders pointed out that the 1954 law has rarely been used against Christians – until a couple of years ago. “In all these years, I had not come across a case where a person has been booked under the 1954 law,” Brooks said.

This changed, he said, after 2022, when a letter was purportedly issued by the Special Branch of Assam police, seeking information on patterns of religious conversions and the number of churches in the state.

FIR after a school function

In September 2024, Mizo gospel singer Bethsy Lalrinsangi and her husband, an evangelist with the Baptist Church of Mizoram, were invited by a school in Kokrajhar district to perform at a gospel meeting.

After the meeting, a sub-inspector of the Kazigaon police station filed a complaint, accusing them of “coercing children into religious conversion”.

The complaint invoked Section 7 of the 1954 law as well as sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita that relate to promoting enmity between different groups on ground of religion, and deliberate and malicious acts that insult or attempt to insult religious beliefs, in addition to the Juvenile Justice Act. The Gauhati High Court granted the couple pre-arrest bail on October 8.

According to the FIR, seen by Scroll, filed by Dharani Bora, the sub-inspector of Kazigaon police station, Bethsy Lalrinsangi had “advised” three minor students to accept Christianity during a gospel programme at Mount Olive school on September 7 and 8.

“The three girls have been suffering from headache and mental agony after Bethsy Lalrinsangi uttered a mantra by keeping her hand on their head,” the FIR read.

An advocate, who represented the duo in the Gauhati High Court, told Scroll: “The principal of the school is from Mizoram. So, they invited the singer for the school foundation programme. She is a very popular gospel singer, and mostly prays for peace. They might have prayed for the children as well. The allegations of healing and conversion are totally denied by my clients and no one was forced to change their religion.”

The advocate pointed out that no parent had complained about the meeting, and the police had filed an FIR on its own.

The Mount Olive School is a private co-educational school at Debitola, Kokrajhar, founded in 1990 and run by the Rabha Baptist Convention. “It has been running for more than 30 years without any problems,” the advocate said. “These allegations are false.”

Christian gatherings

In at least two cases, church workers have been named in police complaints for taking part in or addressing all-Christian gatherings.

On November 17 and 18, Ashim Deka, a 32- year-old church worker, had organised a meeting in Jorhat along with one of his friends. Deka, who belongs to the Koch community, had converted to Christianity six years ago.

Almost a month later on December 16, he was named in an FIR registered at Jorhat police station. Deka had been booked under Section 7 of the 1954 Drugs and Magic Remedies (Objectionable Advertisement) Act. He said the police asked him to appear at the Jorhat police station for three days, including on Christmas.

“It was a Christian gathering, all the people who attended were Christian,” Deka said.

A police official, who did not want to be identified, said the complaint had been filed suo motu as a preacher had been invited from outside the state to the gathering. “The preacher gave a lecture with a motive for conversion,” the official said.

Deka was granted bail by a court in Jorhat in the case.

Similarly, a 50-year-old pastor from Dimapur, Nagaland, found himself named in an FIR in December 2023.

The pastor had travelled to Assam’s Chirang district to pray and attend the memorial service of a Christian woman – the mother of a member of the Bodoland Territorial Council legislative assembly.

Soon after, a health department worker filed a police complaint against him, accusing him of “magic healing” under the 1954 law.

He was also booked under the Juvenile Justice Act as a 17-year-old boy was part of the memorial service. “He was also a Christian and I simply prayed for his well-being,” said the pastor.

He pointed out that the memorial service was a private event. “It was a false case,” he said. “Six hearings have been held but they have not issued any summons yet. The next hearing is on January 16.”

The pastor alleged that Hindutva groups had influenced the health worker to file the police complaint.

Social media posts

In some cases, police scrutiny has extended even to social media posts and videos.

For instance, an FIR was filed in 2023 against a Guwahati-based pastor Jeremiah Basumatary for allegedly performing magical healing on underage children and trying to fraudulently convert people.

Basumatary was booked under sections of the Indian Penal Code dealing with insult to religious beliefs, the Juvenile Justice Act and the 1954 law against magic remedies.

“There is no specific allegation against me as to when and how I attempted to convert people into Christianity or whom I touched inappropriately,” the 45-year-old pastor told Scroll. “The allegations made in the FIR are of generalised nature.”

He said that the police had been investigating his YouTube and Facebook profiles, where he puts up videos. “So now I no longer post on social media,” he said.

The FIR against him was filed by Nayan Jyoti Dakua, a member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh from Guwahati.

“In the name of a prayer meeting, Basumatary invited people and used black magic and fraudulent means like promising magical cures to diseases and manipulation techniques like fear of divine punishment,” Dakua, who heads the youth wing of the state unit of Hindu Jagaran Mancha, told Scroll. “He used this modus operandi to convert the people. He is not alone. There are many such cases among the tribal people across the state.”

Basumatary was granted pre-arrest bail by a local court in November, 2023.

Similarly, an FIR was filed in November 2022 against Dibrugarh-based pastor Elisha Sonowal Yasow and her doctor husband by the Hindu Jagaran Mancha branch of Tinsukia district.

They were accused of performing and promoting “miracle healing” through their YouTube videos and Facebook profiles – as well as “a peace and prayer centre”, which is a kind of a prayer hall, they ran. The police invoked sections of the IPC dealing with charges of criminal conspiracy, deliberate and malicious act of insulting or attempting to insult religious beliefs.

The police later asked a Dibrugarh court to add sections under the Drug and Magic Remedies Act, 1954.

“I have been a pastor for the last 16 years but I did not face any police case or harassment,” Elisha Sonowal Yasow told Scroll. “We told the police they can ask our neighbors if we forcefully turn people Christian. The families who live near our house are non-Christian Adivasi. If we were converting people, we would have made my neighbours Christians first,” she said.

Growing Hindutva influence

Christian leaders blamed the growing Hindutva influence in Assam for the suspicion they faced.

Primingson Millick, the United Christian Forum leader from Karbi Anglong, said that the Christians have become “soft targets” under the BJP government and now face persecution by “state machinery” and “government agencies”.

“We have not seen this during the regime of the Congress or the several governments that have come and gone,” Millick said.

In 2022, following the letter from the special branch of the Assam police, several churches reported the police turning up at their doors. “This was the first instance of survey and state interference,” Millick said. “In some areas, police officials came and respectfully asked the name of the pastor, the number of families under the church. But there are also certain places where the police barged in while the service was going on.”

Dinesh Upadhayay, a Guwahati-based leader of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, said that the Hindutva outfit has been campaigning to “awaken the society against the Christian missionaries and their tactics of conversion”.

“We are also filing cases in places where they are doing conversion illegally,” said Upadhayay, the organising secretary of VHP. “Many local units file cases on their own. Sometimes, things get resolved at the police stations. We are telling people not to sell out their religion. We don’t tell others to accept our religion. So Christian missionaries should stop trying to convert Hindus.”

The Dimapur-based pastor said he feared that the new healing law will make church workers more vulnerable. “I expect the number of cases under the new act to jump this year. It gives complete power to the police for search and seizure.”

He added: “Christians will face persecution from fringe Hindutva groups. Cops will take advantage of the situation and demand bribes not to file false complaints. None of the bigger churches will be affected. But the grassroots church workers will be affected.”