By Joe WallenSonapat, Feb 17, 2020: The odd barking dog was the only thing that cut through the silence as Jai Singh stirred in his bed in his unadorned two-room house in the sleepy, sun-bathed village of Bitchpuri. After a simple breakfast with his wife the pastor led the morning prayers at his home for several of the village’s 120-strong Christian population. But the peace was suddenly shattered as the air filled with the sound of anti-Christian slogans outside. Flinging open the door, he was faced with an irate mob of around 200 people. Before he could reason with them, the crowd beat him and his 15-year-old son and dragged him to the village square. “They hit me with their fists and then took me into the temple and beat me with sticks, before stretching my legs back as far as they would go,” he told The Sunday Telegraph. He suffered two broken feet, as well as permanent nerve damage in his legs. Since Narendra Modi’s government came to power in 2014 religious minorities have felt the force of the prime minister’s Hindu nationalist agenda. While recent unrest in the country has focused on the marginalisation of Muslims, there has also been an uptick in attacks

A British MP heading a parliamentary group on Kashmir on Monday claimed she was denied entry into India despite a valid visa after she landed at the airport in New Delhi A British MP heading a parliamentary group on Kashmir on Monday claimed she was denied entry into India despite a valid visa after she landed at the airport in New Delhi, a charge denied by the government which said she had been informed that her e-visa was cancelled. Debbie Abrahams, a Labour Party member and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Kashmir, said in a statement that she arrived in Delhi on Monday morning and was informed that her e-visa, which was valid till October 2020, had been cancelled. A Home Ministry spokesperson said the British parliamentarian had been duly informed that her visa was cancelled and she arrived in Delhi despite knowing this fact.

He says the Citizenship Amendment Act and possible creation of a National Register of Citizens have led to large-scale protests from students and the youth in many parts of the country. Former Planning Commission deputy chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia says the government must hear voices of protest and bring a healing touch for creating an environment conducive to revival of investment, comments which come in the backdrop of anti-citizenship law demonstrations. He says the Citizenship Amendment Act and possible creation of a National Register of Citizens have led to large-scale protests from students and the youth in many parts of the country. "The voice of the youth is unlikely to be silenced easily. In any society, students and the youth are the ones most likely to speak truth to power if only because they have the least to lose and the most to gain," he says. Ahluwalia, who served as one of India's senior economic policymakers for three decades, makes these observations in his latest book "Backstage: The Story behind India's High Growth Years" which traverses the politics, personalities, events and crises in the country's recent history. He asserts that there is an urgent need to create an environment of social harmony. "To create an environment

Hindu extremists in Andhra Pradesh, India, brutally beat an elderly pastor and verbally abused his wife amid escalating tension over the presence of a Christian church in their community. Morning Star News reports that Pastor Eswara Rao Appalabattula was attacked by a group of Hindu extremists after he pleaded with them to stop building a wall meant to block people from attending worship services at his home in L.B. Patnam village, Andhra Pradesh. "They wanted to build a wall right in front of the church and ban us from using the path," Appalabattula told Morning Star News. "I pleaded with them to not do so. But the group of at least six neighbors, both male and female, punched me in my stomach several times and pushed me to the floor." They picked up a wooden pole and started beating his hands repeatedly with it, he said. Doctors later told him his hand had been fractured. "I was lying there on the floor screaming for help," he said. "My wife came running and begged them to stop beating me — it was traumatic." That same month, a Hindu priest led a group of extremists to the pastor's home, where they threatened to kill his wife, Karuna Appalabattula,

In May, a group escorting children from Jhabua to a camp in Nagpur was accused of trying to convert them – even though their parents said they were Christian. Almost six months after Pandusingh Vasuniya and nine others had been arrested by the railway police in the Madhya Pradesh town of Ratlam, the small-built farmer was still incredulous. “I had my own sons with me but the police still said that we were going to sell our own children,” said Vasuniya, 31, who lives in Jhabua district. “Would any parent do it?” Vasuniya was recounting the events that unfolded on May 22, when he was escorting 60 children from Adivasi Christian families in his district to a religious retreat in Nagpur in Maharashtra. But when they reached Ratlam, they were detained by the railway police, who registered a case of kidnapping and forced conversion against ten members of the group. One of the accused is himself a minor boy – just 15 years old – and has been charged under the Juvenile Justice Act. Another claims to be 17, though the police have charged him as an adult. The next day, on May 23, another group from Alirajpur with 11 children were detained in

Eight Christians charged with kidnapping 60 children for forcibly converting them to Christianity were acquitted on February 18 by the criminal court in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh. The six men and two women falsely accused of the crime they never committed were arrested in May 2017 while they were accompanying a group of tribal children to a Bible summer camp in Nagpur. The police separated the children from the adults and charged the eight Christians with kidnapping and forced conversions in accordance with the Madhya Pradesh Freedom of Religion Act. According to the law, anyone involved in conversion activities by offering money or other fraudulent means will be imprisoned for up to three years with a heavy fine. If the conversion involves tribals or Dalits, the imprisonment is extended to four years. The accused Christians served three months in prison before being released on bail. Now, after more than two and a half years, justice has been granted to the condemned and the court has acquitted them as innocents. Tehmina Arora, director of the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) India said, "Justice has finally been done!" "We must not forget the impact that similar false cases have on families. Nobody should be targeted for their faith. Anti-conversion laws

India’s Catholic bishops on February 19 concluded their 34 biennial plenary, asserting that none has the right to question patriotism of any citizen on subjective grounds. “We believe that patriotism is different from narrow and divisive cultural nationalism, which is radically different from Constitutional nationalism,” stated 192 members of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) after their February 13-19 assembly at St. John’s National Academy of Health Sciences, Bengaluru, capital of Karnataka state. The bishops’ assertion came in the backdrop of a raging controversy over the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) enacted on December 15, 2019. The amendment aims to provide citizenship to migrants from Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Pakistan, barring Muslims. However, many groups, including non-Muslims such as the Maharashtra unit of the Justice Coalition of Religious, comprising Catholic priests and nuns, find the CAA as the first instance of religion being overtly used as criterion for citizenship under Indian nationality laws and therefore fundamentally discriminatory and divisive in nature. They also say the CAA is “at odds with secular principles enshrined in the Constitution and contradicts Articles 13, 14, 15, 16 and 21, which guarantee to every citizen the right to equality, equality before the law, and non-discriminatory treatment by the State.” The bishops,

WASHINGTON DC, FEB 20, 2020. The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations of North America (FIACONA) has written to President Trump yesterday expressing deep concerns about the rapid deterioration of the rule of law in India in Mr. Modi’s regime where Christians are assaulted, intimidated and even killed by his party supporters. Christian properties are damaged, demolished or burnt by members of Mr. Modi’s party with police often taking the side of the Hindu party. The judiciary is also largely intimidated, bought or undermined by the Hindu nationalist party officials causing common people to lose faith in it. FIACONA has urged President Trump to take all that into consideration and make a public show of support for the plight of over 100 million people who follow Christianity in India. In the letter, President of FIACONA, Mr. Koshy George pointed out that, “Although Prime Minister Modi professes his allegiance to Gandhian values whenever he travels abroad, at home, he employs a very divisive strategy based on religion. It not only hurts the Christian population but also undermines the institutional foundation of the democratic India”. He further said, “Today, Christians across India are living in fear. Pastors, Social workers, and ordinary Christians are arrested, tortured,

Pastor falsely accused of engaging in illegal religious conversion by radical Hindu nationalist was expelled from Mayurbhanj village in Odisha where he held regular worship service. On February 2, pastor Salit Barik was leading his regular Sunday worship when a mob of radical Hindus disrupted the service and abused the pastor with filthy language. According to local Christians, the radicals accused pastor Barik of using "psychological tricks" to illegally convert Hindus to Christianity. The mob kicked out the pastor from Mayurbhanj and warned him not to enter the village and that he would face "dire consequences" if he tried to return. The radicals filed a complaint against pastor Barik and based on the false accusation the local police told the pastor not to return to the village if not he would be arrested and jailed for engaging in illegal religious conversion. In addition, the police published a photo of pastor Barik in a local newspaper calling him a criminal engaged in illegal conversions, which is against the state's anti-conversion law. As pastor Barik is no longer in the village, the Christians in Mayurbhanj will no longer be able to attend their regular worship services.

Washington, Feb 20 (PTI) An Indian-American Christian group has voiced its concerns about the safety and security of Christians in India and urged President Donald Trump to meet the minority community members during his maiden trip to the country next week. President Trump will pay a state visit to India on February 24 and 25 at the invitation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. "We fully agree with your policy of forging a strong bilateral relationship with India which is an emerging global power that shares the same core values of democratic principles," the Federation of Indian American Christian Organisations of North America or FIACONA wrote in a letter to Trump. However, members of the Indian Christian communities in the US, the FIACONA said, feel compelled to bring few issues of concerns about the safety and security of Christians in India to his attention. "Today, Christians across India are living in fear. Pastors, social workers, and ordinary Christians are arrested, tortured, or killed. Christian properties are burnt or destroyed by supporters" of the ruling party, it claimed. "We also urge you to meet with selected leaders of the Christian community in India as a show of support to the freedom of conscience and religion in India