A nun and 19 Adivasi children were questioned at Tatanagar railway station in Jharkhand on Friday when they deboarded from a train after members of Hindutva organisation Bajrang Dal raised concerns of alleged religious conversion, The Indian Express reported.

The investigators have not yet found merit to the Bajrang Dal’s allegations.

The group of four boys, fifteen girls and the nun were made to wait at the station for about five hours.

The newspaper quoted Christian rights groups as having alleged that the Bajrang Dal vigilantes posted photos and videos of the minors on social media.

The Bajrang Dal is among a Hindutva groups led by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the parent organisation of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

The nun alleged that she and the children were followed by two men on the South Bihar Express between Kharsawan and Jamshedpur. The group was travelling to attend a life-skills training programme, the newspaper reported.

“They followed us, and at one point, the TTE (travelling ticket examiner) quietly asked me where I was taking them,” the nun was quoted as saying. “Later, a huge mob gathered, as if I were a criminal. The passengers and the TTE began questioning the religion of the minors.”

The nun said that she showed the ticket examiner permission letters from the children’s guardians and the village chief allowing the minors to travel with her, The Indian Express reported.

“We conduct this program every few months, and these children have been in touch with us for more than a couple of years,” she was quoted as saying. “There are children from non-Christian families as well, who still follow their own religion, not Christianity.”

Some children were not carrying their Aadhaar cards as they had decided to join the programme late.

The nun had called the director of the programme, priest Birendra Tete, after the ticket examiner allegedly said that the group would be handed over to the police.

Tete was quoted by The Indian Express as saying that when he reached the railway station, he saw the children sitting on the platform with no female police personnel. “All of them were surrounded by Bajrang Dal members, who were taking pictures of the minor girls,” Tete alleged.

The priest alleged that the nun and the children were at the station from 11 pm on Friday to about 4 am on Saturday, the newspaper reported. They were with the Railway Protection Force before the Government Railway Police questioned them, he added.

The children were taken to the training programme after the Bajrang Dal members left. They have returned home.

Child Helpline 1098 official Pradeep Gupta told the newspaper that they had not found any suspicious activity so far and that the unit’s role was “limited to ensuring the welfare of the children”.

Jayshree Kujur, the deputy superintendent of police of the Government Railway Police, was quoted by The Indian Express as saying that “no confirmed religious conversion has taken place”. But Kujur added that the investigation was underway.

Arun Singh, the head of the Bajrang Dal’s local unit, told the newspaper that a member of the Hindutva organisation travelling on the train had observed “protective threads” on the children’s hands and asked questions to the minor.

“The children could not provide clear answers,” Singh was quoted as having claimed. “When the nun and priest were asked, they claimed they had permission from parents and were taking the children to Jamshedpur for a two-day training program on life skills.”

He claimed that the children were too young to understand the contents of the programme.

When asked why Bajrang Dal members were allegedly taking photos and videos of the children, Singh told the newspaper that it was done to “gather evidence”.

In July, two nuns from Kerala were arrested along with a man identified as Sukhman Mandavi at the Durg railway station in neighbouring Chhattisgarh on allegations of human trafficking and religious conversion. They were accompanied by three women from the state’s Narayanpur district.

They had been arrested and a first information report filed against them after being accosted by Bajrang Dal members on the platform.

A National Investigation Agency court granted bail to the two nuns on August 2.

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