A National Investigation Agency court in Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur on Saturday granted bail to two Kerala nuns who were arrested on allegations of human trafficking and religious conversion, The Indian Express reported.

Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis had been arrested along with a man identified as Sukhman Mandavi at the Durg railway station on July 25. They were accompanied by three women from Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district.

Sebastian Poomattam, vicar general of the Raipur Archdiocese, said that the nuns were taking the women to Agra, where they had been offered jobs as kitchen helpers at a convent.

They had been arrested and a first information report filed against them after being accosted by members of the Bajrang Dal Hindutva group on the platform.

A sessions court in Durg had earlier disposed of their bail petitions, saying that the case falls under the jurisdiction of the National Investigation Agency Act and should be heard by an NIA court.

The advocate representing the nuns and Mandavi told the NIA court on Friday that the three women were voluntarily travelling with them for a job at their institution, reported Live Law. They also submitted statements from the women’s parents that their daughters had left willingly for work-related purposes.

Their parents reiterated that they had been practising Christianity for many years, leaving no grounds for allegations of forcible conversion, the advocate told The Indian Express.

The nuns are members of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate, a congregation of the Syro-Malabar Church based in Alappuzha district’s Cherthala town and were working at a hospital in Agra.

They had been charged under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections pertaining to human trafficking and the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act and remanded to judicial custody till August 8.

One of the three women whom the two nuns were accused of targeting had earlier told The Indian Express that she was coerced by a person identified as Jyoti Sharma, who is allegedly associated with a Hindutva group, into giving an adverse statement.

“They took us to the railway police station,” the woman was quoted as saying by the newspaper. “Jyoti Sharma hit me twice on the face. She said that if you do not follow what we say, we will put your siblings in jail and assault them.”

Rishi Mishra, the Bajrang Dal’s Chhattisgarh coordinator, said that Sharma was part of the Vishva Hindu Parishad’s women’s wing, the Durga Vahini.

The Bajrang Dal and the Vishva Hindu Parishad are among Hindutva groups led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party.