stepped up violent attacks in recent weeks against India’s Christian community in several states, which included shooting at an evangelical church, BosNewsLife monitored Friday, June 17. Gospel For Asia (GFA) which supports indigenous missionaries in the region, said it learned that "in all 40 bullets were fired at the site of the partially constructed GFA Believers Church" in a rural area of India’s Manipur state.
None of the missionaries staying on the site were injured by the bullets, although "one believer did hurt his arm while trying to fall flat on the ground during the shooting," GFA said in a statement to BosNewsLife News Center.
Informed villagers had apparently warned the believers of the pending attack, but Pastor Prim claimed the police refused to intervene. "They did come by the next day—to pick up empty shells from the bullets fired the night before," on May 29, GFA added citing the pastor.
Local Christian organizations reportedly appealed to the governor for protection from such attacks. Human rights groups have linked the violence to what they see as a wide spread campaign across India "of intimidation of Christians" and pressure on Hindus not to convert.
FORCED CONVERSIONS
In the state of Orissa fourteen family members in a remote village of Nuapada district were the latest Christians forced by Hindu fundamentalists to give up their faith in Christ, an ongoing BosNewsLife investigation revealed Thursday June 17.
The incident in the village, some 570 kilometers (about 356 miles) from the state capital Bhubaneswar, happened after prayers from missionaries failed to safe the life of a 45 year old man,. Angry villagers forced the missionaries to leave and new Christians to return to Hinduism.
Several Hindu leaders were present at the conversion ceremony, which came less than a month after three Christian families in Hradakul village of Jajpur district, about 80 kilometers from the capital, were also pressured to give up their new found faith in Christ.
ACTIVISTS ATTACK
Similar forced conversions and attacks have continued in other areas of India. In India’s Chattisgarh around 200 Hindu activists reportedly attacked a church in Moti Chowk village, to protest against alleged conversions there.
Police arrested nine church members and charged them with "disturbing the peace" under Section 151 of the Indian Penal Code, Compass Direct news agency said.
The nine Christians were kept in prison for two days before being released on bail. Meanwhile, the Hindu activists called for a social boycott against the Christian community in the village, preventing them from using the community well or buying food supplies in local markets, Compass Direct reported.
CHRISTIANS SUMMONED
The same Christian news agency said that three days earlier, 13 Christians in another village of the state were also summoned to a village meeting and asked to renounce their faith.
Seven Christians who refused were locked up in the district jail. They were later released on bail. Chattisgarh state is still ruled by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), renowned for what church watchers describe as "its negative attitude towards religious minorities."
In state assembly elections held in December 2004, the BJP campaigned on an anti-conversion platform. In one cartoon advertisement placed in local newspapers, a bishop was depicted forcibly converting a tribal man while an assistant stood guard over others who were held in a cage, waiting to be baptized, Compass Direct reported.
Church organizations and advocacy groups have urged the Indian government to do more to protect the country’s Christians who make up just about two percent of India’s population, which is overwhelmingly Hindu. (BosNewsLife New Delhi Bureau Chief Vishal Arora contributed to the story).
