Pastor’s family moves Gujarat HC to quash conversion charges

Ahmedabad: The family of a pastor has moved the Gujarat high court seeking to quash charges of illegal religious conversion filed against six members of the family in connection with a rape case pending against the pastor's son, who is a doctor.According to the petition filed on Thursday, the conversion allegations were added months after a 27-year-old widow accused the pastor's son of rape on the false promise of marriage. The woman alleged she had been in a relationship with the doctor for six months before filing an FIR at the Mandvi police station in the Surat district in May 2025. Police later filed a chargesheet against him in July 2025.In Dec 2025, police submitted another report before the court alleging that the complainant had been illegally converted to Christianity by family members of the rape-accused doctor. Police were allowed to invoke Sections 4(1), 4(2)(a)(b), 4(c)(1) of the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003, and Sections 5 and 6 of the 2021 amendment, against the doctor's parents, his two sisters and two other relatives. The charges were based on the complainant's statement that the doctor had told her he would marry only a Christian woman, after which she began taking part in religious rituals and was eventually converted. The petition, filed through advocate Utkarsh Dave, argues that investigators improperly combined two separate allegations — the rape complaint arising from the relationship and the later conversion claim — into a single probe. It states that the six petitioners are innocent and that the proceedings are driven by vengeance. The plea further alleges that the complainant sought to implicate the family because the doctor's father is a pastor and trustee of a Christian charitable trust.The petition also argues that prosecution under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act cannot proceed without prior sanction from the district magistrate, and claims no such approval was obtained in this case. The matter is expected to come up for hearing soon.