Americans expelled from India for missionary work

Indian authorities have asked three US nationals to leave India following complaints from Hindu organizations that they were attempting to convert local residents to Christianity while in the country on tourist visas, the Times of India reports.

The three American women, including one aged 15, had planned to attend a prayer session in the Alappuzha district of Kerala that the plaintiffs alleged was part of a religious conversion drive, the paper said.

The Times of India quoted the local superintendent of police as saying, "We have not received any evidence to indicate the three women were engaged in conversion-related activities. However, they were about to attend religious prayer sessions. Their tourist visa does not allow them to attend any meeting, including prayer sessions. We were not clear about their intentions. That is why we asked them to leave the country, and they agreed."

Religious conversion, which has been made illegal in several Indian states, is a controversial and sometimes deadly issue here, as right wing Hindu organizations argue that the conversion of tribal peoples and Dalits threatens Hinduism's position as the country's majority religion.  

In 1999, Australian missionary Graham Staines was burned to death along with his two sons while they were sleeping in a station wagon in the eastern state of Orissa.  Several years later, activists from far right Hindu organizations were convicted of committing the crime.

Similarly, in 2008, Hindu-Christian violence killed at least nine people in Orissa, as the predominantly tribal district of Kandhamal erupted after the apparent murder of a Hindu leader who had organized a "reconversion" drive to recruit Christians to Hinduism.