The City police on Tuesday safely sent 40 tribal community members to Kolhapur by a special government bus.
It was alleged that they were thrashed by members of a Hindu outfit in a train at Sangli railway station on Monday night. The Hindu activists resorted to the act as they believed that a Christian priest was taking them to Goa for religious conversion. The priest and some members of the tribal community were injured in the incident.
They all hail from Shirpur in Dhule district in Maharashtra. They had boarded the train at Manmad. They were scheduled to halt at St Paul’s College here and later proceed to Goa.
Fr Consti from Shirpur called up local priests and sought protection. The Camp Police reached the railway station and brought the tribal community members and the priest to St Paul’s College. “We run a non-government organisation, which manages a school. Tribal community members are employed as teachers. They are taken to Goa for a trip once every four years. We were heading to Goa for a trip when a few persons projecting themselves as Hindu outfit members thrashed us. We are not converting anybody to Christianity,” Fr Consti told DH.
(Published 17 January 2023, 17:39 IST)
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