By BosNewsLife Asia Service
NEW DELHI, INDIA (BosNewsLife)– Twenty Christian missionaries in India are recovering after they were attacked by police and local residents over evangelism activities, BosNewsLife learned.
News of the February 26 violence in the city of Jaipur in Rajasthan has just emerged amid wider concerns over attacks against devoted Christians in India, a heavily Hindu nation.
Crowds reportedly took the Christians to a police station, where witnesses said they were kicked and beaten by police before being released.
The Christians, who were missionaries sent from the Indian city of Hyderabad, had been distributing Christian leaflets. “We had left the spot,” said Surendra Kumar, one of the detained Christians, in published remarks.
“But those people opposed to us followed us till the place where we were staying. There again, they called the police. The police picked us up and took us to the police station. We were made to get out of the police van by being kicked and then, inside the police station, the cops lined us up and hit us with belts on our hands and wrists.”
PRIME MINISTER CONCERNED?
Police did not immediately comment. Advocacy group Barnabas Fund suggested that the incident was remarkable as India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi “broke his silence on anti-Christian violence.”
It recalled that the prime minister had pledged not to “not allow any religious group… to incite hatred against others, overtly or covertly”.
While these remarks were welcomed, Christians across India have reportedly urged the prime minister to prove his words with actions.
Barnabas Fund said it had urged supporters to “pray that the Lord will protect His Church in India as they continue to face violent persecution from Hindu nationalists” and that “the Lord Jesus, by whose wounds we are healed…will heal the wounds that were inflicted upon the Indian missionaries.”
Christians comprise just over two percent of India’s mainly 1.2 billion people, who are mainly Hindu.
