When a Christian pastor died suddenly of a heart attack in a village in the Bastar district of India’s Chhattisgarh state, his family was forced to re-convert to their former religion and pay a hefty fine to get him buried in his village.

Pastor Manju was an outspoken leader and a voice of Christian rights. He shepherded two churches in different villages. He lived with his wife, two sons and a daughter.

On Aug. 28, Manju suffered a heart attack and died before his family could take him to the hospital. The next morning, the family wanted to bury him with the help of the church members. Around 10 pastors arrived to offer condolences and conduct the funeral ceremony.

However, a huge commotion occurred when the village people objected and said they would not allow the pastor to be buried there.

When Manju’s family pleaded with the villagers, they agreed on a condition that the family must pay a fine of INR 200,000 (around $2,300 USD) and do the ghar-wapsi (return to original religion) rituals, and only then the burial will be allowed in the village.

When the area police chief arrived, the authorities sided with the villagers. They warned all the pastors who had come to the funeral ceremony to leave if they couldn’t agree to the ghar-wapsi demands of the villagers.

The police refused to listen to the pastors arguing their right to religious freedom and to be buried in the same village. The police said that people who live in one village must follow the rules of the village and chased the pastors away.

Since the family of the deceased pastor was left to fend for themselves with no support from the police or other pastors, the pastor’s wife and children were subjected to animistic rituals, and later, the pastor’s body was buried with non-Christian rites.