Several videos of pastors miraculously ‘healing’ so-called possessed people or people suffering from ailments have finally got the country to notice the conversion business operating in the name of ‘Yeshu’ (Jesus Christ). While these videos are mostly comical in nature because of the content, effects and background music; they highlight the underlying threat of conversions through deceit. 

A video has recently gone viral where a “bolneeee lagiii” pastor has got the internet in splits after his old video claiming to heal a speech impaired girl started making rounds. The pastor making making these miracles is one ‘prophet’ Bajinder Singh, who was once a Haryanvi Jat before he decided to shift career.

Converted to Christianity while serving jail time for murder

Prior to hailing Jesus in Punjabi, Bajinder Singh born into a Jat family in Haryana’s Yamunanagar was lodged in jail in a murder case. Reportedly, it is during his time in prison that he came in contact with a pastor and got inclined towards Christianity. 

“He used to read Bible daily and got converted,” revealed police officials privy to the investigations. Kickstarting his business in 2012, Bajinder Singh started holding Sunday prayer meetings for ‘healing’ and gradually became popular. 

Arrested in a rape case

After his stint in jail for murder, Prophet Bajinder Singh Ministries as his followers call him fondly was once again arrested in 2018 for allegedly raping a woman from Zirakpur in Punjab.

Singh was picked up by the police at the Delhi airport when the self-styled Christian Godman was about to board a flight to London. The victim had alleged that Singh lured her in 2017 on the pretext of taking her abroad.

He then sexually assaulted her at his house in Chandigarh and made a video of the same which he then used to threaten her. Reports suggest that the victim had paid the accused pastor a sum of three lakh for promising her to be taken abroad.

Accused of looting 

Feeding off patients suffering from fatal ailments, pastor Bajinder Singh in April this year was accused of looting Rs 80,000 from a family claiming to get their dead daughter back to life. 

Filing a case against Singh, Shubham Pandit revealed that his sister Nandini had been suffering from cancer since several years. They lost their father at a young age and were going through a financial crisis.

When the doctors had given up on Nandini, Pandit came across one Suvarna Khede who worked for the pastor. The family was then called to Chandigarh to meet the pastor. It was alleged that the entire nexus of Singh then began extorting money from the family and even got them converted. 

“My sister did not come back to life, we were looted and even converted,” said a dejected Shubham Pandit after being defrauded by the Christian Prophet.

Action against Singh for using children for conversion

What started as a meme, landed the pastor in legal trouble. On August 29 the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) wrote a letter to Mandip Singh Brar, Deputy Commissioner of Chandigarh, seeking action against Singh for using a minor boy for forceful religious conversion activity. 

The NCPCR in its letter noted that such videos promoted superstition and used children for such purposes, thus violating the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. Taking the matter seriously, NCPCR directed the Deputy Commissioner to inquire into the matter and furnish an Action Taken Report within the next seven days.

The ‘healer baba’ surprisingly has over 1 million subscribers on YouTube and over 2 lakh followers on Facebook. His social media pages mostly consist of testimonials and claims of curing illnesses like HIV infections, paralysis by simply applying his prayed anointing oil, curing a deaf and dumb child by using the same oil.

However, a Reddit article claims that the miracle healer himself is on medication for blood pressure and visits a cardiologist for treatment.