The incident occurred in a private home in the village of Panch Gachia. Rev Anand Hari is now in hospital. The “members of others religions have no restrictions on meeting,” says prominent Christian, whilst “Christians instead are not allowed to worship Our Lord.” A group of Christians was attacked in West Bengal by Hindu fanatics during a prayer meeting at the home of a Church member, Shibu Thomas speaking told AsiaNews. Thomas is the founder of Persecution Relief, an organisation that defends Christians from persecution in India. Rev Anand Hari, pastor of the Full Gospel Evangelical Church, who was leading the prayer, was severely beaten. He is now in hospital in serious condition. The attack took place yesterday in Panch Gachia, a village in Paschim Bardhaman district, around 7 am (local time). "The attackers did not spare even women," Thomas lamented. In fact, in addition to the pastor, "there were eight women and two teenagers. “About 15-20 minutes after the meeting started, 20 people suddenly broke into the house and started hitting everyone present with fists, kicks and sticks. Then they fled, leaving the wounded on the ground." The leader of Persecution Relief explained that the incident attracted the attention of others, who took the reverend to a government hospital

Social activists and others on March 28 condemned the arrest of noted economist Jean Dreze earlier in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand in the day. “Jean Dreze is a saint-economist, a potential Nobel awardee who lived in slums, written and done more for the poor than any economist, shunned all power and glory, took up Indian citizenship, is a pacifist. Nothing can be more shameful than arresting him,” tweeted Yogendra Yadav, a renowned psephologist and political commentator based in New Delhi. The Jharkhand Police detained and then released Dreze after he refused to sign a bond and declare that he had no grievances against the government. The well-known Indian economist of Belgian origin and two of his companions, Vivek and Anuj, were detained for a few hours at Vishnupura police station in Garhwa, some 220 km northwest of Ranchi, the state capital. The police asked them to sign a bond and declare that they had no complaints against the government. But they refused to sign any bond or give anything in writing. Dreze and his companions were picked up and taken to the police station for allegedly not obtaining permission from the police for a meeting of villagers on ‘Right to Food.’ People close

Nearly two months after Hindu extremists in India humiliated, beat and forced Christians to praise a Hindu god, the host of the house church has yet to return to his home. Ranjeet Kumar Gautam is still in hiding after more than 20 Hindu extremists in Chapar village, Sultanpur District, Uttar Pradesh state on Feb. 7 burst into his home, beat the 39 adults of the fellowship, kept them from medical care and stood outside the police station threatening to kill them if they filed a complaint. “Nearly every day the attackers come and threaten my family, saying that if I register a complaint with police, they will kill me,” Gautam said. “My family is very scared.” House-church pastor Om Prakash said the hard-line Hindus kept the injured from getting medical are. “The assailants chased us away from the hospital,” he told Morning Star News. “We somehow reached the local police station to report the matter to the police at 10 in the night, and a group of [Hindu extremist] Bajrang Dal people were standing outside the police station. They threatened to kill us if we filed a complaint against them, and we had to flee for our lives.” The attackers went to the homes of

A fact-finding team that probed the lynching of Christian Adivasis in the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand has questioned the local police’s inaction and opposition parties’ silence. “The actions of the local police raise several questions. While the victims kept saying that they were carving an ox that had died, the police filed an FIR against them and 20-25 unnamed persons of their village on charges of cow slaughter,” says a statement from the Jharkhand Janadhikar Mahasabha (grand council of Jharkhand people’s right) The team visited the place of incident April 14-15. Earlier on April 10, a mob lynched to death Prakash Lakda of Jurmu village in Gumla district’s Dumri block. While the victim was an Adivasi, his attackers were men from the Sahu community of neighboring Jairagi village, says the fact-finding team. Three other Adivsasis from Jurmu – Peter Kerketta, Belarius Minj and Janerius Minj – suffered severe injuries in the mob attack, said the team comprising several activists and representatives of member organizations. The team’s statement said they learnt that the four victims, along with other men and children of their village, were carving a dead ox on the bank of a river that flows near their village. Local Adivasis and other communities

A longstanding Hindu extremist practice of turning animistic villagers against Christians has intensified as elections get underway in India today, with tribal villagers taught that Christianity is anti-Indian. Upset about tribal Adivasi relatives leaving the animistic Sarna religion to become Christians, 60-year-old Sanpitha Majhi attacked a 28-year-old Christian mother he believed had “forcefully converted” his daughter and son-in-law in eastern India’s Jharkhand state. Bale Murmu was washing utensils in an outdoor area of her home on April 1 and did not notice Majhi, her neighbor, coming toward her, pastor Girish Chander Marandi said. “Majhi with all his force pressed her breasts and pushed her to the floor,” Pastor Marandi told Morning Star News. “While he was kicking her in her stomach, his wife, Gouri Majhi, brought a wooden stick, and the couple beat her black and blue.” When her husband, Jaata Murmu, heard her screams and came to rescue her, he too was beaten, Pastor Marandi said. “Murmu suffered bruises all over her body and, her stomach and breasts were swollen,” he said. “We provided her first aid that night, and the next day we went to the police station.” Police refused to receive their complaint until they reminded officers that Majhi had also attacked Christians on

The court has ordered the Indian territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli (Dnh) and Daman and Diu to restore the festivity, which this year is celebrated on 19 April. The bishops' secretary thanks the many Hindus - starting with the lawyer - who supported the Catholic petition. Mumbai High Court has ordered two Indian Union territories to restore Good Friday, which this year is celebrated on April 19, as a public holiday. The fact that Dadra and Nagar Haveli (Dnh) and Daman and Diu, both former Portuguese colonies on the west coast of the country, had canceled the holiday caused deep sorrow not only in the local Catholic community, but throughout India. Speaking to AsiaNews Mgr. Theodore Mascarenhas, general secretary of the Indian Bishops' Conference (CBCI), says joyfully: "We won. We are happy, especially because Indian democracy is alive. We have had incredible support even from many non-Christians. These are the beautiful things of India that we must safeguard”. The sentence was issued yesterday, after a few weeks delay. The judges who dealt with the case are the president of the tribunal Pradeep Nandrajog and N.M. Jamdar. They accepted the petition presented by Mr. Anthony Francisco Duarte of Moti Daman, representing the Indian Church and the archdiocese

It was a different kind of Easter celebration this year for Pastor Anil Juit of Maranatha Full Gospel Church in eastern India. Opening the door of the historic church building in Arrah, in Bihar state’s Bhojpur District, on Easter Sunday (April 21), he found a gaping hole in the back wall, and everything inside had been gathered up and burned in a heap, he said. The mats the congregation usually sat on for services were charred in the ash heap. Pastor Juit and the 70 members of the congregation were shocked but remained for Easter worship. As he made his way out at the end of the service, Pastor Juit noticed that someone had written “Jai Sri Ram [Hail, lord Ram]” on the outside wall of the church building. “It is evident from the slogan that this is the work of some Hindu radicals,” he told Morning Star News, adding that he suspected the damage was done the previous night. The church has used the once-vacant building of the Holy Saviour Church of Arrah for its services for five years with permission from the district superintendent of the Methodist Church in India, he said. Local media portrayed the burning as part of a robbery, which he refuted. “Nothing

Village leaders in eastern India prohibited five Christian families from working on their farms or walking on the main road before district authorities this month revoked the order, sources said. Leaders of Banhardi village, in Jharkhand state’s Latehar District, told the five families in April to either convert back to their ancestral Sarna religion or face punishment, Christian leaders said. When the Christians refused to renounce their faith, the village on April 10 issued a decree instructing that their farmland be confiscated and prohibiting them from interacting with anyone, fetching water and buying or selling, they said. Before district officials arrived on May 13 and annulled the April 10 decree, the Christians had to go outside the village to look for food and other items to meet daily needs and were on the verge of starvation, said Motilal Oraon, one of the persecuted Christians. “We had to carry drinking water from some other village to our homes,” Oraon told Morning Star News. “They did not allow us to enter our own farmland or work in it. We went searching for work in somebody else’s farmland in a distant village, as we could not find work in our own village. Our families were starving.” After

Gornath Chalanseth, one of seven Christians jailed for life for the murder of a Hindu swami in the Kandhamal district of Odisha state in eastern India, has been freed on bail by India’s Supreme Court yesterday, May 21. The seven – three of whom are Dalits, the other four tribals – continue to maintain their innocence. However, only Chalanseth’s bail application was filed in the Supreme Court – after Odisha High Court had rejected it for a second time last December. Once given bail, there is no deadline to return to jail unless ordered by the Supreme Court. A former Supreme Court Justice Cyriac Joseph and former Kerala High Court Justice P K Shamsuddin, have criticized the delays in hearing the men’s appeal. “This (delay) is a failure of the judicial system. In the judicial process, appeal could be delayed for many reasons. But in this case there are no (technical) reasons to keep it pending. It seems to be deliberately delayed, perhaps so that it is brought before a suitable judge,” remarked Justice Joseph a year ago. “When we were convicted (in 2013), it was a shock. It was very stressful for me when I put behind bars for murder, despite being innocent” Chalanseth told World Watch

STATEMENTMAY 24, 2019, WASHINGTON, D.C. The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA) is deeply concerned about the future of Indian Christians and the future of Indian democracy in the wake of just concluded national elections.In a world that is getting more and more polarized on religious grounds, the return to power of a Hindu extremist party is not surprising. Though all Hindu voters did not vote for extremist views of the Hindu party, many have. The assertion of extremist Hindus to claim a multi religious, multi-cultural and multi-linguistic country like the Union of India to their view of exclusive Hindu ideology is certainly troubling. Now this election has further deepened that to a crisis level. Though, there are several reliable reports about rigging and large-scale voter fraud combined with voter suppression not to mention the "malfunctioning" of Electronic Voting Machines, EVMs, in many parts of the country during the elections, for a student of Indian electorate, the margin with which the Hindu party is claiming victory seem very suspicious. (Interstingly, the "malfunctioning" EVM machines tallies votes only to the Hindu nationalist BJP party in every instance)The fact that the BJP Hindu party and Prime Minister Modi’s appeal failed in states like