India

An attempt by Hindu nationalists and media in western India to blame Christians for the mob killing of three Hindus threatens to provoke violence against Christians, sources said.

The New York Times recently reported, that in India citizens aren’t just “dutifully following” Prime Minister Modi’s COVID-19 lockdown order, but are “going above and beyond it.” The sudden outbreak of rule-following means that for many Christians, there is a break from the persecution that has escalated since Prime Minister Modi took power in 2014.

This month, Tribal animists in central India severely injured a pastor just one month after they demolished his house and drove him and his family out of their village.

A gunman shot the daughter of a murdered pastor in India late last week. The shooter stood in the Christian family’s doorway and reportedly took aim at the 25-year-old woman.

A mob of 60 villagers in eastern India beat a Christian man unconscious with wooden sticks putting him in a temporary coma.

Christians in India were beaten and arrested while offering aid to poor people in Southern India. Reportedly, the Christians were accused of forcibly converting some of the people they were providing aid to.

Police beat Christians last week while forcing them to pose like Jesus on the cross.

A pastor and his family were forced to flee their home and retreat to the wilderness after they were attacked by extremists.

In a recent interview with the BBC, Asia Bibi, the Pakistani Christian who spent eight years waiting for execution on a trumped-up charge of blasphemy, recalled her mistreatment. She described how much of sham her “trial” was, and how she was not even allowed to say anything in her own defense. She talked about the pressure she faced to renounce her faith.

And then she said, “I am not angry at all. I have forgiven everyone from my heart. And there is no hardness in me.” 

Hindu radicals reportedly recently had a 12-foot statue of Jesus removed from a Christian cemetery. The statue was removed only after radicals living outside of the village where the cemetery is located complained.