The Chhattisgarh State Women’s Commission on Thursday asked the police to register first information reports against Bajrang Dal members for allegedly harassing three Adivasi women and two nuns from Kerala at a Government Railway Police station in Durg in July, The Indian Express reported.

On July 25, Preeti Mary and Vandana Francis were arrested along with a man Sukhman Mandavi at the Durg railway station. The three women with them were from Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district.

Sebastian Poomattam, vicar general of the Raipur Archdiocese, said that the nuns were taking the women to Agra, where they had been offered jobs as kitchen helpers at a convent.

They had been arrested and an FIR was registered against them after they were accosted by members of the Hindutva group on the platform.

They had been charged under sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita pertaining to human trafficking and the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act.

They were granted bail on August 2.

The three women had approached the Narayanpur police to file complaints against members of the Hindutva group but were directed to Durg, where the incident had taken place, The Indian Express reported.

When the police allegedly failed to act, the women submitted their complaints to the Chhattisgarh State Women’s Commission in August.

The women claimed that Bajrang Dal workers Jyoti Sharma, Ravi Nigam and Ratan Yadav had assaulted, molested and subjected them to caste-based abuse, Manorama News reported.

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

On Thursday, commission Chairperson Kiranmayee Nayak confirmed that a formal letter had been sent to Director General of Police Arun Dev Gautam, asking for FIRs to be registered based on the complaints, The Indian Express reported.

Nayak warned that if the police fail to file cases within 15 days, the matter will be escalated to the National Human Rights Commission, with a demand for compensation for the women from the police administration, The Hindu reported.

The nuns are members of the Assisi Sisters of Mary Immaculate, a congregation of the Syro-Malabar Church based in Cherthala town of Kerala’s Alappuzha district, and were working at a hospital in Agra.

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