Andhra Pradesh News

Notorious Christian pastor who boasted of kicking idols of Hindu Gods and forming ‘Christ Villages’ in AP arrested

January 14, 2021
The Commune

Praveen Chakravarthy, the notorious Christian pastor who had boasted of kicking and defacing idols of Hindu Gods and creating ‘Christ Villages’ was arrested by the Andhra Pradesh Crime Investigation Department (CID) on Wednesday (13th January, 2021).

He has been charged under various 153 A, 153 B (1) (c), 505 (2), 295 A, 124 A and 115 of the Indian Penal Code for promoting enmity between different religious groups and committing offence in a place of worship. He has also been charged under Section 66 F [punishment for cyber terrorism]of the Information Technology Act .

Pastor Praveen Chakravarthy is the President of ‘Sylom Blind Centre’. His activities were brought to light in 2019 by Legal Rights Protection Forum (LRPF), a legal activism collective. LRPF had lodged a complaint with the Union Home Ministry in December 2019 against ‘Sylom Blind Center’and its President Praveen Chakravarthy for indulging in rampant rabid proselytization.

In a video tweeted by LRPF Pastor Praveen Chakravarthy can be heard saying with impunity in Telugu that he hit the ‘stone God’ and trees [sacred trees like Neem, Peepal, etc that are venerated by village people] with his leg. The video was first made available in a YouTube channel called ‘Bangalore go-sipps’

Chakravarty in the video can be seen describing how he converts a village to Christianity. He says that first a pastor would come and stay in the village to teach the Bible. He says that the village becomes a “Christ village” after everyone has accepted Christ as their saviour and adds that ‘stone gods’ and ‘trees’ are kicked as a finality.

“So there are many cases which (sic) I have kicked the God’s heads and I was so happy”, he says in that video.

In another expose, the LRPF released video of Pastor Praveen’s online discussion with his US donor in which he claims “We’ve 3642 Pastors in our association & have made 699 Christ Villages so far. Will make it 700 in a month.”

Now, the Andhra Pradesh police have arrested Pastor Praveen based on the complaint filed by one Singam Lakshmi Narayana, a resident of Guntur.

CID Chief PV Sunil Kumar IPS has said that immediate legal action would be taken against the perpetrator.

LRPF has also written to the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) seeking action against ‘Sylom Blind Centre’ for procuring FCRA funds in the name of liberating children from child labour. In its complaint had noted that the organization did not inform concerned authorities and had allowed the perpetrators of child labour to go unpunished. It added that action has to be taken on the NGO for projecting India as country having the ‘largest slave population in the world’ and for violating lockdown norms which had resulted in 318 children testing COVID positive. LRPF has also petition the NCPCR to issue directions to concerned law enforcement agencies to investigate the utilization of the huge sum of ₹93.67 crores of foreign funds over a 5 year period received by way of FCRA inward remittances by ‘Sylom Blind Center’.