On 6 February Pastor Jose Papachan was granted bail, a day after his wife Sheeja Papachan had secured bail. The couple’s release from prison was warmly welcomed by family members and friends of the couple who are described as missionary pastors.
Pastor Jose and Sheeja were sentenced at a special court in Ambedkar Nagar District in Uttar Pradesh state on 22 January to five years’ imprisonment and a fine of 25,000 Rupees (€275) each under Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion law, which was strengthened in 2024 to include harsher penalties. Special courts are established by the federal government to provide swift trials for specific offences and have limited jurisdiction. While many Christians have been arrested and detained and charged under the law, they are the first to be convicted in court.
Special Court Judge Ram Vilas Singh issued a 22-page verdict which included statements given by the accuser, who is a member of the Uttar Pradesh Legislative Assembly and belongs to India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, six Dalit villagers, all of them illiterate, and three policemen. One villager said in her statement to the court that Pastor Jose and Sheeja would visit her house and impart “good education” to her and her family and gave her books from a local church. She said, “They would come to my house and teach me and my neighbours good things and would ask us to not drink alcohol or get into fights.” She said that she would gather people from her neighbourhood when the couple came to her house and that Pastor Jose and Sheeja would read the Bible to them, speak about Jesus and ask them to follow him. Several villagers spoke of a gathering on Christmas Day when a cake was cut and sweets were offered to the villagers.
Almost all the witnesses stated that the couple would impart good lessons to them and their children. However, the judge in reaching his verdict underlined the portions of their statements where they said that the couple would ask them to follow Jesus and pray to him and judged that their activities constituted “allurement” under Uttar Pradesh’s anti-conversion law.
Several Christian leaders have expressed concern about the conviction. A. C. Michael, a prominent Christian activist, stated: “This is the first time we have encountered such a sentence for a suspected conversion attempt. It is not a recognised crime under the law, and we believe it will not stand in a higher court.”
Pastor Joy Mathew, who has been assisting the couple, called the judgment biased and said that they will challenge it in the High Court. “There was no evidence to substantiate the charges of conversion, yet they were convicted based on unsubstantiated statements,” he said.
Background
The case dates back over two years as Pastor Jose and Sheeja were first arrested in January 2023 after a complaint was made accusing them of attempting to convert vulnerable people belonging to Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes to Christianity. Pastor Jose and Sheeja, who are residents of Madhya Pradesh and are originally from Kerala in southern India, had spent several months in Ambedkar Nagar District in Uttar Pradesh prior to their arrest.
The couple spent eight months in detention until September 2023 when they were granted bail by the Allahabad High Court on the basis that “providing good teachings, distributing the Holy Bible, encouraging children to get an education, organising assemblies of villagers and serving community meals, instructing villagers not to argue and also not drink alcohol does not amount to allurement”.
There have been almost thirty court hearings in the case, culminating in the conviction and sentencing in January 2025 following which Pastor Jose was taken to hospital with anxiety and stress (he has a number of different health issues) and later taken to prison.
During 2024, a total of 209 anti-Christian incidents were recorded in Uttar Pradesh, the highest of any state in India.
(Christian Solidarity Worldwide, The Observer Post, Organiser, The Wire, UCA News)
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