India

Christians in eastern India suspect a church member’s Hindu family killed him last month for refusing to renounce his faith, sources said.

According to sources, nearly two months after police arrested a pastor in India from his grandmother’s home, tied him to a tree and beat him, threats from officers and others have kept him from filing a complaint on the brutality.

According to sources, after months of appeals to officials in central India, Christians are still awaiting action against a police officer alleged to have burned down a church building and threatened them with false charges if they continue worshiping.

Tribal villagers in eastern India assaulted three Christian families and destroyed their homes on Easter Sunday (April 17), sources said.

Christians falsely charged with crimes related to an act of vandalism in central India five years ago spent five days in jail and are fighting the case anew after it mysteriously resurfaced, sources said.

Still recovering from injuries at the hands of a Hindu extremist-led mob that beat him unconscious in January, a pastor in central India faces death threats, landlords who refuse to rent to him and baseless charges of forcible conversion, sources said.

Six masked men in central India this month killed one of 22 Christians a Maoist group had warned to “leave the pastorship,” sources said.

Hindu extremists in the National Capital Territory of Delhi last month tied a pastor to a post at a busy intersection and beat him before hundreds of people, but police have yet to make arrests, sources said.

Pastor Rakesh Babu was about to go to bed one night earlier this year in northern India when eight Hindu extremists broke into his house, beat and choked him and slit his wife’s throat, he said.

A Hindu extremist mob on Jan. 28 attacked two pastors in northern India, setting the Bible of one on fire as he blacked out from the beating, he said.