Eight Indian Christians Sustain Serious Injuries in Latest Attack
A Christian meeting in a village in northwestern India’s state of Rajasthan was interrupted on Sunday when a group of Hindu militants threatened and attacked those in attendance
A Christian meeting in a village in northwestern India’s state of Rajasthan was interrupted on Sunday when a group of Hindu militants threatened and attacked those in attendance, Asian news agencies reported Wednesday.
According to AsiaNews and the Union of Catholic Asian News, an unspecified number of militants attacked eight Protestant clergymen who had gathered to pray on Sunday, injuring the men seriously enough to require hospital treatment. The attackers also desecrated their copies of the Bible.
Sajan K. George, chairman of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), a Christian rights group, told AsiaNews that the militants were from the Bajarang Dal, a Hindu nationalist group, and were wielding lethal weapons.
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In response to the attack, George has sent a letter to Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, calling his attention to the continuous violence Christians experience throughout India.
“Christians are also part of India,” George wrote, according to AsiaNews. “But the climate of discrimination has suffocated their day-to-day life.”
Sunday’s attack was one of several reported incidents in recent weeks. Christian persecution watchdog Voice of the Martyrs (VOM) reported earlier this month that attacks on Christians in India were continuing, following another incident of violence on Mar. 2 in Rajasthan. Concerning that attack, VOM was informed by Dr. Joseph Chavady of One to One International that a Wednesday night worship service led by one of their pastors was interrupted by a group of Hindu militants who entered the prayer hall and severely beat eight One to One workers.
Although VOM reported that the men did not sustain permanent injuries, the watchdog group said the men were “very shaken up by the attack.”
The leading pastor of the congregation, whose name was withheld by VOM for security reasons, had been preaching the Gospel and planting churches for almost thirty years in Rajasthan. The Mar. 2 incident was the first time that persecution had come so close to his home, VOM reported.
In Rajasthan and in a number of states throughout India, reports of escalating violence against Christians have made their way outside the predominantly Hindu nation and into religious media agencies.
According to reports, the recent wave of violence began Jan. 30, when Hindu activists forced their way into a large Christian gathering after hundreds of worshippers had come from towns and villages in India’s Uttar Pradesh state to take part in a prayer rally. The activists reportedly charged that rallies such as the prayer rally were aimed at conversions and that Christians lure the people with gifts of land, money, food and clothes.
In another reported incident of violence, the body of 25-year-old Pastor Narayan was found on Feb. 11 in a small town in Mysore district, Karnataka state. George told Compass News that the official report of the autopsy suggested it was a case of suicide. However, the GCIC head suspected Hindu extremists were responsible for Narayan’s death and that their sympathizers are engaged in a cover-up.
Shortly afterwards, in India’s Kerala state, six theology students with Gospel for Asia (GFA) were forcibly abducted and beaten on Feb. 13 by activists of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the armed wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)—the Hindu nationalist party that has been accused of being hostile to religious minorities. On Feb. 18, GFA reported that police had arrested the five RSS men involved in the attack after a raid conducted by the Deputy Superintendent of Police.
In an interview last month with AsiaNews, Bishop Percival Fernandez—Secretary General of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India—said the recent wave of violence against Christians in India was part "of a plan led by fundamentalist groups."
