Metro
BREAKING: Pastor, assistant arrested for hypnotising 77 children in Ondo
Police in Ondo State command on Saturday, arrested a pastor and assistant pastor of a church, the Whole Bible Believers Church popularly known as Ondo Church, David Anifowose and Peter Josiah, for luring and harbouring about 77 people who have been hypnotised in an underground apartment of the church.
The two pastors were alleged by the relatives of the people to have hypnotized them and camped them in an isolated apartment within the church located in the Valentino area of Ondo town, in Ondo West Local Government Area of the state, on the pretence of religious abduction.
According to the State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Funmilayo Odunlami, who explained that the two pastors were arrested following complaints from some parents of the underaged children camped in the church and would never allow the parents to have access to their wards.
Odulami said 77 people, including 23 underaged and 54 adults, were rescued from the den of the pastors, who insisted that they were kept in the church for special cleansing and deliverance ahead of the Second coming of Jesus Christ
The two pastors who denied the allegations levelled against them, however, said they never turned the children and the people against their biological parents but they were taught not to disobey their fathers in the lord.
Speaking, one of the parents alleged that her daughter has been hypnotized and refused to come home since January and said the two pastors had brainwashed her daughter against her parents, while they encouraged her to drop out of school.
It was gathered that the arrest of the two pastors of the church followed complaints by some parents of the children who had been camped in a special place in the church.
One of the parents who visited the church to pick her daughter billed to write her secondary school entrance examination caused an uproar and was thrown out of the church and had to report to the police.
It was gathered that the boy was not allowed to write the entrance examination as the two pastors had been preaching against going to school because they would not need education after being taken to heaven.