Hindu extremists beat a Christian pastor in India’s central state of Madhya Pradesh while a man attacked a television station promoted by an evangelist in Chennai in the latest wave of attacks on Christians in the country.
A Pentecostal pastor known only as Bharat was beaten by a group of Hindu extremists in Tichkiya, Madhya Pradesh, according to a report on AsiaNews.
The pastor was in a prayer gathering when alleged Hindu radicals broke into his house. The attackers accused the pastor of “enticing” the tribal population in the area to embrace the Christian faith.
In Chennai, Matters India reported that a man attacked the headquarters of Sathiyam TV, a popular satellite channel in Chennai, promoted by evangelist Mohan C Lazarus.
“He entered the office premises through the car parking area. He carried the weapons in a guitar bag,” said the channel’s managing director, Isaac Livingstone.
The Chennai Press Club condemned the attack and appealed to the Tamil Nadu government to enact a law for the safety of journalists.
US-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern (ICC) has earlier raised concerns over the growing incidents of Christian persecutions in India.
Christians make up about 2.5% of India’s population, while Hindus comprise 79.5%. India ranks as the 10th worst country globally when it comes to Christian persecution, according to Open Doors USA’s 2021 World Watch List.
The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has urged the US State Department to label India as a “country of particular concern” for engaging in or tolerating severe religious freedom violations.
The Evangelical Fellowship of India has earlier documented 145 cases of atrocities against Christians — three murders, 22 attacks on churches and 20 cases of ostracization or social boycott in rural areas — in the first half of 2021.
“The violence, detailed in the report, itself was vicious, widespread and ranged from murder to attacks on churches, false cases, police immunity and connivance, and the now normalized social exclusion or boycott which is becoming viral,” says the report.
In July, at least 30 Christians were falsely accused of engaging in forced religious conversions and arrested in India’s most populous state of Uttar Pradesh, according to ICC.
