A Chinese court today jailed three persons for up to four years for promoting a banned religious cult in a southern province of the country.
Li Meiying, Huang Caiqiong and Nie Qunying handed out pamphlets for the Lord God Sect cult and organised gatherings in towns and villages in Hezhou city of China's Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region since 2013, the People's Court of Hezhou said in its verdict.
Huang and Nie coaxed a villager surnamed Wu to give his two underage daughters to the "service of the Lord God". The two children went missing after they were brought out of town for a cult gathering in February last year.
They were separately rescued by the police six and eight months later, the verdict said, state-run Xinhua news reported.
The suspects continued spreading cult materials despite knowing it was illegal and shut down in 1998, the court added.
The cult's founder was sentenced to death in 1999 on several counts of rape, fraud and organising cult activities.
Huang was given four years in prison, Li three years and Nie two years.
