The Congress MPs in Lok Sabha Wednesday sought intervention of Centre, demanding release of two nuns who were arrested in Chhattisgarh on July 25.

Before the start of Lok Sabha proceedings, Congress leader Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, Congress general secretary K C Venugopal, RSP MP N K Premchandran and some other Congress MPs from Kerala staged a protest near Makar Dwar of Parliament, demanding the release of the nuns.

Nuns Preethi Merry and Vandana Francis were arrested at Durg railway station on July 25 following a complaint by a local Bajrang Dal functionary, who accused them of forcibly converting three girls and trafficking them.

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“Some nuns from Kerala were very badly ill-treated… They were manhandled by Chhattisgarh Police. We are protesting against these kinds of attacks on minorities,” Priyanka said.

Raising the matter in LS during Zero Hour, Congress members K C Venugopal, Hibi Eden and other Opposition MPs called the incident “deeply disturbing”.

“These two innocent nuns are in jail for the last five days… Is the country a banana republic?… We wrote to the CM of Chhattisgarh and Home Minister of India… But the Chhattisgarh CM is repeating the same version of Bajrang Dal,” Venugopal said.

Congress MP Hibi Eden said, “But the Bajrang Dal workers put pressure on the government and jailed them. False accusations have been made… cases of human trafficking and conversion have wrongfully been made.”

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BJP Durg MP Vijay Baghel, countered the allegations and said that Congress MPs were doing a conspiracy against a “well-governed” and “sensitive” government of Chhattisgarh by indulging in misleading propaganda and trying to create tension between two religions.