preaching, despite an attack against them and amid reports that Hindu militants have begun a court case against evangelical Christian women who were raped by Hindus.
"The Lord has given the team members a burden to reach this area, and they would like to continue their ministry there," said K.P. Yohannan, the founder and president of Gospel for Asia (GFA), a large native mission group.
In a statement to BosNewsLife, he said the team members were recently beaten as they began showing a film designed to "help people deal with a relevant social issue. Leading up to the film showing, they had held awareness programs about the important social issues of child marriages and AIDS—issues hitting close to home for people in Andhra Pradesh state. "
However the area around the village, which he did not identify apparently for security reasons "was dominated by radical anti-Christian groups" who he claimed soon attacked the GFA and fellow missionaries. “They also destroyed the projector and the sound system, with more than $4,000 in property damage. “
FORCED CONVERSION
Reports of violence came as Hindu militants allegedly filed a counter-complaint of “forced conversion" against two Christian women who had lodged rape charges against Hindu villagers in a village of the Indian state of Madhya Pradesh.
The women had filed the charges on May 31 after being gang-raped in Nadia village on May 28 for their refusal to abandon their Christian faith. The counter-complaint of "forced conversion" against the women and their husbands was supposedly lodged on June 1, but Indira Iyengar, a member of the Madhya Pradesh Minorities Commission, told Christian news agency Compass she suspected it was actually filed later and registered with a backdate entry.
"The administration is taking advantage of the fact that the victims are illiterate. How can they talk about their religious freedom or defend themselves?" Iyengar was quoted as saying. A member of a National Commission for Minorities (NCM) team sent to probe attacks on the Christian community in Madhya Pradesh reportedly said the administration had allowed the forced conversion charges in order to protect the rapists.
INVESTIGATING ALLEGATIONS
The NCM, which visited Madhya Pradesh to investigate allegations of harassment against Christians, faulted the local government for failing to protect the tiny Christian minority. "There is a total failure of administration to protect human and religious rights of Christian minorities," the group said in published remarks.
The group also recalled how Hindu militants interrupted a press conference in the state capital Bhopal, organized to highlight the violence against Christian women and others. "Among the complainants were bishops who were in tears as they spoke about anti-Christian atrocities there," Catholic World News agency quoted Harcharan Singh Josh, a spokesman for the NCM, as saying.
Christians comprise roughly 2 percent of India’s over one billion people, who are mainly Hindus. Several Hindu groups have expressed concern over what they see as the rapid spread of Christianity in rural areas and have accused missionaries and other church representatives of carrying out "forced conversions."
Especially Evangelical Christians deny these charges, saying the Bible teaches that everyone can make a choice to either reject of follow Jesus Christ "by accepting Him as Lord and Savior." (With BosNewsLife News Center and reports from India).
