The preacher pulling crowds with promises of healing and miracles

On the afternoon of March 9, groups of people in mini buses, cabs, autorickshaws, and some on foot, rush towards the Glory and Wisdom Church in Tajpur village, Jalandhar district, Punjab. They are headed to a field spread across five acres, where Bajinder Singh, who calls himself a prophet, will be speaking at a prayer meeting.

Some are here seeking cures for their ailments and others to find a solution to their financial woes. All believe in the “healing crusades” and “miracle services” that the preacher promises. The man, who claims to be 42, runs a ministry based on the Bible. He has built his profile as a man of God over the past decade and has 3.75 million followers on YouTube, with over a million each on Instagram and Facebook.

This Sunday though, villagers in Tajpur say the crowd, usually 6,000-7,000 strong, has dipped marginally. Manjinder Singh, former office-member of Tajpur panchayat, says, “Most of the crowd comes from outside the village.”

On February 28, an FIR was registered against Bajinder at the Kapurthala police station on charges of sexual harassment, stalking, and criminal intimidation based on the complaint of a 21-year-old woman. She was once a volunteer, serving a few years at the preacher’s ministry.

His followers, from across north India, say this is just God testing him. Geeta, 30, who is originally from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, but now lives in Amritsar, says nothing in the world can weaken her faith in “Papa-Bajinder”. “My husband struggled with alcoholism for about 15 years. But after Prophet Bajinder’s prayers, he has started living a normal life. I shifted to Amritsar 13 years ago and since 2017, I have been regularly visiting this church,” says Geeta, whose husband sells fruits for a living. As she makes her way forward, she adds, “I am with him. All his followers are.”

The prayer meeting

As his followers make their way through the pastoral landscape, with green wheat stalks glistening in the spring sunshine, the scene breaks into a mini market. Here on sale are crucifixes, keyrings with the cross, Christian art, copies of the Bible in Hindi, as well as posters of Bajinder with messages from him. Most people rush past as a “healing crusade” is about to begin, where Bajinder claims he will cure people of ailments.

Behind the big metal gate at the entrance to the premises, which has a few buildings and tents spread across an open field, the believers, as they like to be called, are listening. Each service goes on for five hours, and people come and go. Bajinder wears a white shirt, black blazer, and jeans. He is reciting verses from the Bible in a mix of Hindi, English, and Punjabi. There’s a music group that is playing a background score. The message is often about God testing people with difficult circumstances.

Bajinder has been on the wrong side of the law a few times. On March 25 this year, he was booked in another case by the Punjab police, allegedly for assaulting a 35-year-old woman pastor. The case was registered days after a video circulated on social media purportedly showing him slapping and arguing with the complainant.

The FIR was registered under Sections 74 (outraging a woman’s modesty by assault), 115 (voluntarily causing hurt), and 126 (wrongful restraint) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita. According to the complainant, the incident occurred on February 14 at Bajinder’s church in Majri sub-tehsil, S.A.S. Nagar district. Bajinder’s associates, however, have dismissed the allegations.

He recently appeared before a judge in a Mohali court that was hearing a 2018 sexual harassment case against him. In 2022, a Delhi-based family accused him of fraud after he allegedly took money from them to ‘cure’ their daughter of an illness, but she could not be saved. He also spent a year and a half in jail, of his own admission. This is when he claims he became a Christian.

Scared and sick

Over 30 km away is the survivor’s home in Kapurthala. At her mohalla (neighbourhood), residents are reluctant to speak. At the end of a lane, the woman, physically sick from worry, lives in a three-storey house with her parents. She is here for a few months with her husband after giving birth. “It was the safety of my baby girl that made me muster the courage to file a complaint against him [Bajinder],” she says, adding that years of harassment and threats have taken their toll. “I started to visit the Glory and Wisdom Church at Tajpur village in 2017 with my parents. I was 13 years old then. After a year or so, their functionaries started pressuring my parents to make me join as a volunteer in the service of the pastor,” she says.

Reluctantly, in 2020, she did. In a few months, she says she began receiving sexually explicit messages and phone calls on her mobile phone from Bajinder. Soon, he began touching her inappropriately, she says. “He once smashed my foot so badly that the scar is still there. I wasn’t able to tell my parents as the pastor and his associates kept threatening to kill me and them if I did. I was so scared that I started getting panic attacks. I left my studies in college midway,” she says. She got married in 2024 and began to live in Jabalpur, Madhya Pradesh.

When she came for delivery to her parents’ place, she and her husband faced intimidation from Bajinder and his group, she says. “They even threatened to cause harm to my newborn. It was then that my husband and I decided to approach the police.” She wants the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012 to be invoked as she was a minor then.

The Punjab police has set up a three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) to probe the charges against the pastor. The Punjab State Women Commission and the National Commission for Women have also taken cognisance of the case and sought swift action from the police. There is criticism that Bajinder has not been questioned till date.

Superintendent of Police (Phagwara) Rupinder Kaur Bhatti, who is heading the SIT, says, “We are examining both sides. The complainant has given us some mobile phones and pen drives, which we have sent for forensic examination. The report is awaited. We have visited the church [in Tajpur] and examined the witnesses. As and when needed, we will personally examine him [Bajinder] as well.”

Blind belief

Reacting to the allegations, Bajinder, at a press conference, said, “The allegations levelled against me are baseless. Fake chats and messages are easy to create these days. The girl was suffering from fits as evil spirits had haunted her. She is like our daughter and our task is to pray.”

At what is touted as a healing service, a woman in her 30s longing to have a child walks towards the pastor. He says, “Are you a believer? Do you believe? If yes, you shall be cured today. Everyone pray for her.” He touches her forehead with oil, and she rolls violently on the ground. The crowd erupts, shouting, “Hallelujah”.

The woman stands up as Bajinder declares she has been cured of a cyst and ‘blesses’ her, saying she will have a baby soon. In the background, the orchestra reaches a crescendo; the crowd sways with raised arms.

Seema, 35, a follower from Sultanpur Lodhi town in Kapurthala, says she has been associated with the ministry for the past seven to eight years and her faith in the church has only grown. “I was suffering from an ovarian disorder and despite taking medication, the problem persisted. But when I came here and the prophet started praying for me, I was cured. I am free now,” she says, adding that she has not taken any medicine ever since joined the church.

On his website, Bajinder claims his ministry is the “World no. 1”, and that his father was a farmer who held a government job. He says “some evil forces harassed me” when he was a teenager and that he got “into the wrong company”, which landed him in jail.

After his release from jail — his office does not confirm any dates — he started preaching at gatherings in S.A.S Nagar district, but when villagers objected, he moved near Baraudi village in Majri sub-tehsil.

Manmohan Singh, former sarpanch of Baraudi, says, “Everyone has the right to practise their religion, but many villagers objected to the loud music that continued late into the night. I had held meetings with them to reduce the noise level during my tenure, but it was of no use.”

On his website, the locations of his churches are listed: Tripura, the easternmost in India; Pune, the southernmost; and 12 locations abroad, including Hong Kong and Fiji.

Bajinder is not available to meet or speak. Avtaar Singh, president of Bajinder’s ministry, says, “There’s no truth in the allegations. We do not indulge in anything that creates trouble for others. The allegations are a conspiracy against us.”

Power and money

Punjab is seeing the sprouting of dera (camp) churches, unaffiliated to organised Christian sects such as the Church of North India, which is administered hierarchically with elected office-bearers. Most dera churches have branches across all districts of the State, with many like Bajinder claiming to have branches outside the State and country.

Emanual Nahar, professor at Panjab University’s Political Science department, says there are about 20 to 25 dominant dera churches in the State, many opened by non-Christians. “About 10,000 to 25,000 people attend Sunday services. Dalits from Punjab, who constitute 32% of the State’s population (as per the 2011 Census), are followers since these deras often offer social equality,” he says.

Many of these non-traditional churches offer miraculous healing and supernatural intervention in personal and health problems, he adds. Testimonies of people claiming to be cured of illnesses or life’s troubles make them a big draw.

During campaigning for the 2024 Lok Sabha and the 2022 Punjab Assembly polls, candidates of all key political parties visited these churches. Harpreet Deol, who runs the Open Door Church in Khojewala village, Kapurthala, launched the United Punjab Party in April 2023. In February that year, his church was raided by the Income Tax Department along with that of Bajinder.

Around 5 km from Bajinder’s church, spread across approximately 75 acres, stands the Church of Signs and Wonders at Khambra village in Jalandhar, which was established by Ankur Narula, 39, who calls himself an apostle. His premises too were raided by the IT Department in 2023.

His meeting attracts 25,000-30,000 people every Sunday and his YouTube channel has 2.65 million followers. As he delivers his sermon, Narula asserts that “spreading the word of God and changing hearts is at the core of his discourse”.

Hamid Masih, working president of the political wing of the ministry, says, “In mainstream Christian denominations, such as Roman Catholics and Protestants, one has to undergo extensive training to become a priest. Also, if a person wants to accept Christianity, it’s a long process before being baptised. Here, we focus on change of heart and not on conversion,” he says.

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Edited by Sunalini Mathew