Ahmedabad: A sessions court in the city today sentenced a pastor to 3 years of imprisonment and fined him Rs. 1000 in a case related to blackmailing and trying to convert a minor Hindu girl.

In the first such ruling in Gujarat, the Ahmedabad court found a pastor of Ecclesia Church, Gulabchand Parikan Masih, guilty of blackmailing the minor girl and coercing her to convert to Christianity. The pastor asked the girl to remove her clothes during a video call and took screenshots of the interaction. Later, he used these images to blackmail her into reading the Bible.

The victim is a minor girl studying in class 11 and resides in the Amraiwadi area of the city. The girl had met this pastor for the first time through her neighbour, who informed her that there is only one religion, which is Christianity. Later, when the girl did not attend church, the pastor sent two boys to her house, who instructed her to vandalise the temple, claiming that Satan resides in the idols there. The pastor engaged in video calls with the girl using her father’s phone.

During the sentencing, the court noted that pastors in the church are meant to address people’s problems, but in this case, the guilty pastor had blackmailed a minor girl. The pastor was found guilty under Section 354 of the Indian Penal Code and the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act. DeshGujarat