Police stand aside as Indian pastor beaten

A nationalist mob in India subjected a pastor to dehumanising brutality, damaging his hearing and trying to force him to worship a Hindu deity, sources said.

Villagers led by ‘cow vigilantes’ placed a garland of footwear around Pastor Bipin Bihari Naik’s neck (pictured), and made him walk on thorns as they paraded him through Parjang village in Dhenkanal, Odisha state, last month.

Along with tying him up at a Hindu temple and trying to force him to chant Hindu slogans, they attempted to make him drink water mixed with cow dung, the sources said.

Pastor Naik, aged 35, who had been dragged out of his house and beaten, suffered an injury that has affected his hearing in one ear. He said surviving the ordeal was a miracle. ‘When … police showed no intention of rescuing me, I surrendered my spirit to Jesus, knowing they would kill me,’ he told Morning Star News (MSN).

Please pray for healing and justice for Pastor Naik and for his wife, Bandana, and two young daughters, who witnessed the attack.

Bandana had rushed to the police station to get help for her husband but instead officers had insisted she first provide a written report of the assault; then they said they were unable to help because their vehicle was out on patrol.

Two policemen who later went to find Naik returned, saying that he was nowhere to be found. However, Naik said he saw them approaching but then turning around and leaving.

The assailants had tried to get him to bow to the statue of a Hindu god. They demanded he chant the Hindu slogan, ‘Jai Shri Ram [Hail lord Ram],’ but the pastor said, ‘Jai Yeshu [Hail Jesus],’ and they hit him more, he said. The mob then made a garland out of slippers, put it around his neck and paraded him through the village barefoot, making him walk on thorny bush branches. They even passed the police station where Bandana was waiting anxiously.

It was more than two hours later that Bandana and the police found Naik. However, instead of rushing him to hospital, the officers threatened to file a case against him and put him in jail unless he stated that ‘the mob misunderstood my activities and mistook me for a person carrying out illegal conversions in the village and thus attacked me,’ he said.

A Christian leader who arrived to help said the police ‘cared nothing and did not give him first aid, nor a glass of water to drink’.

Naik was taken to hospital for treatment, said the source, but he and his family have since moved to an undisclosed location more than 40 miles away. Naik said both his daughters had been ‘traumatised and could not sleep for four nights and did not eat food for three days. My youngest kept saying that “they hit my papa”’.

This article was originally published on https://releaseinternational.org/police-stand-aside-as-indian-pastor-beaten/