A special court in Uttar Pradesh’s Ambedkar Nagar district on Thursday sentenced a Christian couple to five years in jail for allegedly luring people to convert to Christianity, The Times of India reported.

The court of Additional District Judge Ram Bilash Singh also imposed a fine of Rs 25,000 each on Jose Pappachan and his wife Sheeja Pappachan.

A case had been registered against them in January 2023 by a person named Chandrika Prasad. The couple was subsequently arrested.

Prasad had alleged that the couple had tried to influence poor families in the district’s Dalit settlement of Shahpur Firoz to convert to Christianity, the newspaper reported.

On December 25, 2022, the couple allegedly gathered several persons from the Dalit community for mass conversion.

The couple was convicted under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act based on accounts shared by witnesses, The Times of India reported.

The state’s anti-conversion law outlaws religious conversion through marriage, deceit, coercion or enticement. It further makes it compulsory for any person intending to convert their religion to inform the government at least one month in advance.

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