Paradip: Police today (May 1, 2004) arrested six persons of Kilipal village in Orissa's Jagatsinghpur district on the charge of tonsuring nine Christians including seven women of the same village in February last, official sources said.

Police rounded up the six, including three women and forwarded them to a court at Jagatsinghpur which remanded them to jail custody.

The six arrested persons are Gurucharan Samal, Sukadeb Samal, Babaji Das, Shantilata Samal, Sushama Kandi and Prabhati Das. A case under sections 341, 342, 294, 354, 355 and 34 of IPC and section four of Orissa Freedom of Religion Act had been registered against them at the Tirtol police station.

A large crowd of villagers had allegedly caught hold the nine persons over a conversion row on February 10 and forcibly tonsured them. The nine included Subash Samal, the first convert in the village and the pastor of the local Christian congregation.

The tonsured persons had filed an FIR at the Tirtol police station on February 11 against some villagers. A counter-FIR had also been filed against the pastor Subash Samal on February 18 last.

About 20 villagers including those tonsured had fled the village after the incident and had taken shelter in Bhubaneswar.

Seven of them had visited the village to cast their votes in the April 26 elections. They first reached a nearby police station and went to the polling booth with police escort.