Attacks on Christians are surging regularly all over India when worshippers gather for prayer and on Sunday mornings.
On December 6, 2021, in Tamil Nadu in Nagapattinam Vedaranyam Taluk Kovilpathu Village Kirubasanam Kristhuin Sabai, a fasting prayer was been conducted as Christians regularly do, and this time Brother Stephen was conducting the meeting.
All of a sudden, around 40 to 50 enraged men from a village nearby barged into the church screaming with threats and inflammatory language and started chasing out the Christians in the church. Brother Stephen who conducted the prayer meeting was locked inside the church. The attackers desecrated Christian religious practices and terrorized the Church members with menacing threats.
According to Brother Stephen, while the police did come later, no action was taken against the attacking mob, and instead, they were terrorizing the church members. The church members reported that the band of attackers chased them out of the church and demanded the pastor to be brought in front of them. In the meantime, a few of the members courageously ran out to reach a police station. The police came investigated the situation and then sent the church members home. They did nothing to stop the mob from preventing the meeting to continue.
One of the Christians said, “They are obstructing us even conducting prayer meetings, and from even worshiping. We need protection for that and for the pastor.”
Other churches members said, “We have given a complaint to the police station but no action has been taken until now, and they are requesting the Tamil Nadu government to take action against them and to give protection to them as the right-wing crowd could harm the pastor and request the government to ensure safety to the pastor too.”
A church member named Kasturi has submitted a petition to the police statement in the report “Trespassing into our prayer hall Causing hindrances to prayer meeting Locking the pastor inside the church” and wrote “This is against the Indian penal code. The members of the church requested police to take necessary action.”
Here is a video of the attack:
Right-Wing Groups Try To Enter Haryana Church, Cops Avert Attack On December 10, 2021, at 1:04 Right-Wing Groups crash into a church in Haryana claiming that the Christians are converting. The Rohtak police said they have received no complaints about conversion.6 Chandigarh: Members of several right-wing organizations attempted to push their way into a church in Haryana’s Rohtak on Thursday and were eventually halted by the police. The crowd alleged that the church was carrying out religious conversion. The BJP-ruled state is planning an anti-conversion law on the lines of the one in Uttar Pradesh. The police said they received no reports about conversion and the mob was managed to get under control after raising a ruckus.
The Associate Pastor of the Church told reporters, “People come here out of devotion, just like any other place of worship… We never forced anyone to come here.”
He said the police visited them last evening and informed them about a possible demonstration and inspected the situation.
“We received a complaint that something like this might be happening”, but no complaint has been filed regarding conversion, Captain Manoj Kumar, the Deputy Commissioner of Rohtak told reporters.
The police, he said, have also conducted their investigation and “found nothing like that (religious conversions)”. For around six years, people have been holding prayer meetings at the church on Sundays and Thursdays.
After receiving the complaint, policemen were deployed at the church, the officer said.
“There was a gathering for which no permission had been obtained. So it was dispersed,” Mr Kumar said, referring to the mob. The situation is normal now, he added.
Under the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Ordinance, 2020, unlawful religious conversions are prohibited and marriages are canceled if people of different religions marry, and are looked upon with great suspicion.
Apparently, Hindu extreme right-wing groups in India are getting excessively antagonistic by the day. Some months back, a 14-year-old boy from Bihar was brutally killed for becoming a Christian by pouring acid on him, he died a week later in hospital. While everyone knew who did it, police refused to register a complaint, and in their statement wrote he died by suicide. The government authorities do not condemn such moves, and most police do not register complaints of Christians. The question arises as to why are these groups feeling so insecure with 2% of the population. The fake narrative that Christians are converting by force does not hold water. Converting to Christianity in India has a big price, where people lose properties, land, inheritance, and life and why would they, when they would be persecuted. However, following any religion is a personal choice and a matter of the heart. Likewise, some Westerners have become Hindus, and surely, no one in the West storms into the Hare Krishna Ashrams to sabotage their places of worship.
The Government of India has to take strong steps to stop this discrimination because their silence will lead to genocide. As we know, all genocide starts with hate speech and the silence of people in power enables this.
Rita
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