The Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) on Thursday "brought back" to Hinduism six Christian and one Muslim family at a paribartan ceremony in the West Bengal's Malda district.
The ceremony, which took place in Bharat Sevashram Sangh's ashram at Tajpur, 30 km east of Malda, kicks off a massive "reconversion" programme planned by the VHP in the adivasi belt of the district, claimed senior VHP leaders.
All the families that "reconverted" had filed affidavits before a local Malda court last week swearing that they were converting to Hinduism of their own free will.
State VHP spokesman Ajoy Kumar Nandi said, "We'll be intensifying our paribartan programme to bring back people who were lured into Christianity and Islam".
The reconverted families corroborated Nandi's charges. "We were lured into Christianity by offers of food, medicines, education, money and building materials. But the promises did not materialise. We then realised it was wrong to have embraced Christianity and so we are coming back to our religion," said Raja Hansda of Srirampur village.
While Malda DM Ashok Bala expressed ignorance about the ceremony, Malda SP Pankaj Dutta said, "If any force had been applied, the law would have taken its course. But this was a voluntary affair."
Malda VHP secretary Kishore Das
said a massive paribartan ceremony would be organised at Adina, about 15
km from Malda, later this year.