In August 2021, Activist Anshul Saxena had complained to the NCPCR about Pastor Bajinder Singh using a minor boy in his superstitious and conversion activities. After that, the boy, along with his sister and mother, gave statement against him and accused him of insulting Christianity. Reportedly, the supporters of Pastor Bajinder Singh burned his effigy, gave numerous threats on social media, and also filed a police complaint against him.
According to a post by Anshul Saxena on X, in a surprising turn of event, after 4 years, that same boy has confessed that his sister was never mute, she could speak. The boy has also revealed that he had participated in the deception in exchange for 2 kg of rice, 3 kg of sugar, and 5 kg of wheat flour.
Who is Pastor Bajinder Singh?
Background
Several videos of pastors miraculously ‘healing’ so-called possessed people or people suffering from ailments have got the country to notice the conversion business operating in the name of ‘Yeshu’ (Jesus Christ). While these videos are mostly comical in nature because of the content, effects and background music; they highlight the underlying threat of conversions through deceit.
Prior to hailing Jesus in Punjabi, Bajinder Singh born into a Jat family in Haryana’s Yamunanagar was lodged in jail in a murder case. Reportedly, it is during his time in prison that he came in contact with a pastor and got inclined towards Christianity.
“He used to read Bible daily and got converted,” revealed police officials privy to the investigations. Kickstarting his business in 2012, Bajinder Singh started holding Sunday prayer meetings for ‘healing’ and gradually became popular.
Arrested in rape case
After his stint in jail for murder, Prophet Bajinder Singh Ministries as his followers call him fondly was once again arrested in 2018 for allegedly raping a woman from Zirakpur in Punjab.
Singh was picked up by the police at the Delhi airport when the self-styled Christian Godman was about to board a flight to London. The victim had alleged that Singh lured her in 2017 on the pretext of taking her abroad.
He then sexually assaulted her at his house in Chandigarh and made a video of the same which he then used to threaten her. Reports suggest that the victim had paid the accused pastor a sum of three lakh for promising her to be taken abroad.
Accused of looting patients
After his stint in jail for murder, Prophet Bajinder Singh Ministries as his followers call him fondly was once again arrested in 2018 for allegedly raping a woman from Zirakpur in Punjab.
Singh was picked up by the police at the Delhi airport when the self-styled Christian Godman was about to board a flight to London. The victim had alleged that Singh lured her in 2017 on the pretext of taking her abroad. He then sexually assaulted her at his house in Chandigarh and made a video of the same which he then used to threaten her. Reports suggest that the victim had paid the accused pastor a sum of three lakh for promising her to be taken abroad.
Filing a case against Singh, Shubham Pandit revealed that his sister Nandini had been suffering from cancer since several years. They lost their father at a young age and were going through a financial crisis. When the doctors had given up on Nandini, Pandit came across one Suvarna Khede who worked for the pastor. The family was then called to Chandigarh to meet the pastor. It was alleged that the entire nexus of Singh then began extorting money from the family and even got them converted.
Action against Singh for using children for conversion
On August 29 the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) wrote a letter to Mandip Singh Brar, Deputy Commissioner of Chandigarh, seeking action against Singh for using a minor boy for forceful religious conversion activity.
The NCPCR in its letter noted that such videos promoted superstition and used children for such purposes, thus violating the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. Taking the matter seriously, NCPCR directed the Deputy Commissioner to inquire into the matter and furnish an Action Taken Report within the next seven days.
The ‘healer baba’ surprisingly has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube and over 2 lakh followers on Facebook. His social media pages mostly consist of testimonials and claims of curing illnesses like HIV infections, paralysis by simply applying his prayed anointing oil, curing a deaf and dumb child by using the same oil.
Rampant Christian conversion menace in Punjab
Apart from Bajinder Singh, there are dozens of “pastors”, “prophets” and “apostles” running this conversion business. There are others like Ankur Narula, Gursharan Kaur, Kanchan Mittal, etc. All of these are converted from either or Sikhs and retain Hindu-Sikh names as well as symbols like Pagri etc. Each of these has tens of thousands to lakhs of followers and has made crores of money. Now, these are in the process of granting franchises to others for their conversion business. More and more such peddlers of faith enter the fray every month.
As HinduPost had pointed out earlier, in the census of 2011, Punjab had a total of 3,48,230 Christians. If these numbers are correct, in the recent years, the population of Christians has increased at least 10 times. 10% of Punjab is now Christian and the conversions to Christianity are increasing on a daily basis. Punjab is now on target for rapid Christianization after Andhra Pradesh.
The increase in Christian evangelical activities in Punjab has been highlighted time and again. The conversion has been sporadically covered by the state and international media, which have noticed the huge growth of such Pastors in Punjab. Huffington Post and Tribune have covered how the converts from Sikhism and Hindu dharma are swelling the numbers of Christians in Punjab. However, the coverage in national media is largely absent. Only when “Prophet” Bajinder Singh was accused by a woman of rape, did the media give some space to this issue.
In Christianity, inculturation is the adaptation of the way Church teachings are presented to non-Christians, to attract them to Christianity. It is basically a strategy to introduce Christianity by deception and lies. In Bharat, this is seen in the Christian “Ashrams”, “Sadhus” and appropriation of Bharatnatyam, Yoga etc. Did you know, there is Yeshu Puran, Yeshu Sahastranama, Yeshu Veda and Yeshu Upanishad too? Many Christian missionaries keep saffron robes, live in ashrams and make temple like churches. In Punjab, the symbols of Sikhism are used to confuse and convert rural Sikhs. Sabu Mathai Kathettu wrote a whole book with strategy for converting Sikhs!
The biggest way of spreading of Christianity is prayer meetings. It is called “prarthana sabha” in Hindi/Punjabi. The biggest highlights of these prayer meetings are the fake miracle cures. Thousands of people are brought to such meetings on false promise of cure. Ailments of all hues such as infertility to cancer are “treated” in the name of Jesus there.
Hindus all over Bharat need to build awareness against these fraudulent fanatics who spread superstitions and exploit the needy, poor and suffering people in the guise of religion. Common people like us can support RSS and such other organisations, support media houses that report these issues, form our own small organisations, organise people to follow Dharma or just be eyewitnesses until our own families become the target of conversion.
