A group of Hindu extremists attacked Christians and destroyed homes in a village in India’s Odisha state last week.
A report on AsiaNews said the attackers destroyed the houses of eight Christian families in the village of Sikapai, Rayagada district, on June 8.
“They could not tolerate the presence of Christian families,” the report quoted local pastor Upajukta Singh. He said eight out of the 40 households in the village are Christians.
He said Christian women are usually humiliated and forced to return home every time they would go to the village well to fetch water.
Singh said the Christian villagers have sought refuge in the forest after the attack.
“Extremists attacked the tiny Christian tribal community by denying religious freedom and the most basic human rights,” said Father Purushottam Nayak, a priest in the Diocese of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar.
The priest said the district of Rayagada is located in a mountainous region where people are poor. He said Christians in the neighboring states of Chattisgarh and Jharkhand are also under attack.
Christian villager Nori Konjaka confirmed the reported attack, but said the attackers “can destroy our homes, but not our faith in Jesus.”
The Global Council of Indian Christians strongly “condemned” the attack, saying that “secular India has a constitution that should guarantee religious freedom.”
A report from Persecution Relief last year noted that crimes against Christian communities in India are on the rise.
There was no let-up in anti-Christian violence even while the nation battled the COVID-19 pandemic, said the report.
Hate crimes against the Christians during the first half of 2020 included the burning of churches, use of physical violence, sexual abuse, murder of clerics and damage to Christian properties.
Members of Christian communities were bullied, terrorized, hassled, boycotted, physically assaulted, and there were even attempts to hinder their worship at many places, the report said.
Persecution Relief said it has documented as many as 293 cases of hate crimes against Christians in the first half of 2020, up from 208 cases during the previous year during the same period, and 51 hate crimes of serious nature targeted women and children.
According to Persecution Relief, the northern most populous state of Uttar Pradesh fared the worst with the highest 63 incidents of harassment of Christians, followed by the southern state of Tamil Nadu which saw 28 cases in the first six months of 2020.
Christian families have been rendered homeless and forced to stay in makeshift shelters at many places as 37 cases of excommunication and social boycott have also been chronicled.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has listed India as a Country of Particular Concern and noted that religious minorities in the country continue to be subject to violent attacks although India is a democratic and secular nation.
