India: Hindu extremists lock Pastor in room and leave him to die as punishment for sharing the Gospel
by Karen Faulkner, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – A pastor in northeast India has been rescued after a gang of radical Hindus locked him in a room and left him to die because he was distributing Gospel tracts, Morning Star News reports. Pastor Shelton Vishwanathan was accosted by six men who knocked him unconscious and imprisoned him in a room in Bihar state’s Sheohar District on October 5.
Describing the ordeal to Morning Star News, Pastor Vishwanathan said he remembered being approached by the Hindu extremists while he was on his scooter. “They punched my back and told me that they would offer me as a sacrifice to their deity as a punishment for distributing gospel tracts [in Tiryani village],” he told Morning Star News. “They struck severe blows on my head so that I soon fainted.”
Pastor Vishwanathan regained consciousness alone in a locked, dark room, where he remained for seven days without food or water. Finally, an elderly woman living nearby heard his cries for help and he was rescued. “Had she not helped, I would not be alive today,” he told Morning Star News. “I fully believe that it was God who sent her to help me. I had come under attack several times for leading a home church and sharing the gospel in villages but survived only because of God’s grace.”
Although the legal advocacy Alliance Defending Freedom India has offered to help him press charges, Pastor Vishwanathan has declined their assistance. According to local Morning Star News sources, Christians are increasingly subject to violent attacks but pastors and their congregations are reluctant to complain as the police are often sympathetic to Hindu extremist violence.
Meanwhile, Pastor Vishwanathan plans to continue sharing the Gospel of Good News. “I am overjoyed to see the Lord’s hand in every situation over the past two months. My family who thought I must have been lost and died have returned to see me alive. We give thanks and praises to the Lord,” the pastor told Morning Star News.
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