A key human rights official warned Tuesday, February 12, that corruption within the police and government of India’s eastern state of Orissa has contributed to renewed violence against Christians in which at least five people were killed, while several “innocent” believers remain jailed.
Seven Christians who were accused of killing Hindu nationalist leader Laxmanananda Saraswati back in 2008 remain imprisoned while thousands of their fellow believers still live in fear of further reprisals resulting from his political assassination, according to International Christian Concern.
Impoverished Christian villagers in India’s western state of Maharashtra were refused water and firewood Tuesday, January 8, after a Hindu attack on their house church injured some 30 believers, a chief investigator told Worthy News.
An Indian evangelical pastor was recovering of injuries, after he and his family were beaten by “anti-Christian” Hindu extremists near the capital New Delhi, a major mission group and relatives said.
A Christian mission leader “kidnapped by terrorists” in north-eastern India has been released and was with his wife and children Tuesday, July 31, unharmed, missionaries said.
During the last two months, Christians in the Southern India village of Vanagiri Menavar have been banned from corporate worship and their children refused access to school, but now Hindu leaders have banned them from fishing.
About 30 Sangha Parivar activists forcibly entered Immanuel Sakineh House Church and began attacking the congregation, alleging that they were involved in the forcible and fraudulent conversion of Hindus to Christianity; after destroying all the Bibles and Christian literature they could find, the activists then phoned the Basappakatte police station who immediately took Pastor Mounesh into custody for further inquiry.
More than 50 Hindu nationalists attacked the pastor of the Pentecostal Fellowship Prayer group and a dozen families of his community on June 15.
Police investigations continued Monday, June 11, into the reasons behind the murder of a Protestant pastor in southern India and the destruction of a church in the north where hundreds of Christians have reportedly fled their homes, Worthy News monitored.
Hindus who tried to stop the burial of a Christian convert last week in Chattisgar state beat a pastor and other Christians, including children and the elderly, according to Compass News.
Christians in India’s eastern West Bengal state were recovering of their injuries Thursday, April 12, after Muslim militants broke up a prayer meeting and beat up believers, including women, local police and Christians said.
A 35-year-old church pastor was murdered in India’s southeastern Andhra Pradesh state by suspected Maoist rebels who slit his throat, police and Indian rights activists confirmed Thursday, April 12.
Suspected Hindu militants broke up a Christian prayer meeting and forced two women leading the gathering to stop evangelizing in India’s southwestern state of Karnataka, as part of several attacks against devoted believers across the country, Christians told Worthy News.
The High Court of Jammu and Kashmir stayed further proceedings against an Anglican clergyman.
Evangelical Christians in southeastern India were due to worship Sunday, January 29, amid heightened tensions after Hindu hardliners attacked a pastor and church members, representatives said.
Hindu militants twice attacked evangelical Christians in India’s southern state of Karnataka, injuring several believers, including women and children, Christians told Worthy News.
More than 30,000 Christians recently took part in a prayer meeting in Hubli, Karnataka despite efforts by pro-Hindu groups to disrupt them.
The leader of a hardline Hindu group wants India’s constitution to legalize the killing of Christian evangelists and, for instance, promoters of other non-Hindu religions.
Following complaints from radical Hindu groups, police recently closed Pentecostal churches in the districts of Hassan and Bangalore.
Four Pentecostal pastors in Madhya Pradesh were recently beaten and arrested on charges of forced conversion, spending a night in jail before making bail.