India

A key human rights official warned Tuesday, February 12, that corruption within the police and government of India’s eastern state of Orissa has contributed to renewed violence against Christians in which at least five people were killed, while several “innocent” believers remain jailed.

Impoverished Christian villagers in India’s western state of Maharashtra were refused water and firewood Tuesday, January 8, after a Hindu attack on their house church injured some 30 believers, a chief investigator told Worthy News.

An Indian evangelical pastor was recovering of injuries, after he and his family were beaten by “anti-Christian” Hindu extremists near the capital New Delhi, a major mission group and relatives said.

A Christian mission leader “kidnapped by terrorists” in north-eastern India has been released and was with his wife and children Tuesday, July 31, unharmed, missionaries said.

During the last two months, Christians in the Southern India village of Vanagiri Menavar have been banned from corporate worship and their children refused access to school, but now Hindu leaders have banned them from fishing.

About 30 Sangha Parivar activists forcibly entered Immanuel Sakineh House Church and began attacking the congregation, alleging that they were involved in the forcible and fraudulent conversion of Hindus to Christianity; after destroying all the Bibles and Christian literature they could find, the activists then phoned the Basappakatte police station who immediately took Pastor Mounesh into custody for further inquiry.

Police investigations continued Monday, June 11, into the reasons behind the murder of a Protestant pastor in southern India and the destruction of a church in the north where hundreds of Christians have reportedly fled their homes, Worthy News monitored.

Christians in India’s eastern West Bengal state were recovering of their injuries Thursday, April 12, after Muslim militants broke up a prayer meeting and beat up believers, including women, local police and Christians said.

A 35-year-old church pastor was murdered in India’s southeastern Andhra Pradesh state by suspected Maoist rebels who slit his throat, police and Indian rights activists confirmed Thursday, April 12.

Suspected Hindu militants broke up a Christian prayer meeting and forced two women leading the gathering to stop evangelizing in India’s southwestern state of Karnataka, as part of several attacks against devoted believers across the country, Christians told Worthy News.