Immanuel Tirkey and about 100 villagers were watching the end of a Christian film in Bihar state, India, when a man stood up in front of the screen and began shouting, “Who is the operator here? Who is the operator here?” Tirkey, one of five Christians who had organized the screening of “He Will Come Again” at the home of a Christian woman identified only as Anandi on Aug. 23 in the Kodaila area of Jamalpur village, Siwan District, rose and asked what was the matter. The man told him to reduce the volume, and Tirkey did so. “He was again and again asking me to reduce the volume,” Tirkey told Morning Star News. “I told him that if I reduced it more, it will not be audible to anybody seated here, and that there are only 10 minutes left for the movie to end.” The man left, but as the villagers were gathering their belongings to leave after the screening, at least 15 Hindu villagers arrived with swords, bamboo poles and wooden sticks, he said. Anandi’s family immediately rushed Tirkey and the other four Christian organizers of the screening into their house and locked the doors. “The batch of Hindu villagers abused them

Hindu extremists raped the 4-year-old daughter of a pastor in central India because he refused to stop sharing the Gospel, a missionary in the region reports.  Pastor Samuel, an Open Doors USA partner on the ground in India, told The Christian Post that over the years, his ministry has come alongside hundreds of Christians persecuted for their faith in the south Asian country.  He shared the story of one pastor and his wife who, shortly after getting married, decided to move to a small town in Central India to begin a ministry for children.  “They would offer the Gospel to these children who were dropped off at their home,” Samuel said. “Before long, these children started doing well at school and changing their behavior, so their parents became curious and asked about Jesus.” With a growing interest in Christianity, the pastor and his wife decided to start a small church in their home. Around that time, their young daughter started kindergarten at the local school.  Not long after the church started, a group of Hindu extremists cornered the pastor and ordered him to stop sharing the Gospel. “They told him to stop holding services, or warned him he would have dire consequences,” Samuel said.  However, the

 Catholics in the Archdiocese of Ranchi have appealed for help after a local Jesuit mission was brutally attacked by a large armed mob last week. St. John Berchmans Inter College, a Jesuit school and hostel in India's Jharkhand state, was attacked by around 500 armed Hindu extremists Sept. 3, the college’s secretary Fr. Thomas Kuzhively reported to Agenzia Fides. The attackers were armed with sticks, chains, iron bars, knives, and pistols, and beat tribal students including two who were seriously injured, he said. They seriously damaged the school’s facilities. The mob also tried to sexually harass female students, tried to prevent the transport of injured students to a hospital, destroyed and vandalized school property, stole cash, and attacked an attached hostel for tribal students, Kuzhively reported. In the wake of the attack, school has appealed to the heads of Jharkhand, as well as other local and regional authorities, for action to be taken. Christians in India have suffered an increase in attacks since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in the country’s 2014 elections. In recent years, religious minorities have been targeted by Hindu extremists for violence and oppression in efforts to keep them out of power and influence and to keep the

Activists from the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP), the student wing of India’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), shout slogans during a protest march in New Delhi, India, February 24, 2016. Thousands of ABVP members on Wednesday carried out the march against "anti-national sloganeering" raised at the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU) campus earlier this month, protesters said. | (Photo: Reuters/Adnan Abidi) Authorities in India are reportedly now requiring employees of foreign-funded nonprofits to sign notarized affidavits saying they will not engage in religious conversion. India’s Home Ministry announced Monday restrictive amendments to the Foreigners Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), according to the Economic Times.  The new requirement comes about two years after the Christian child sponsorship organization Compassion International was forced out of the country over a crackdown on foreign aid. India’s Ministry of Home Affairs announced that each member or functionary of a nongovernmental organization will need to file an affidavit attested by a notary declaring that they have not been involved in any act of religious conversion or prosecuted for communal disharmony.  Previous rules required only top office-bearers to give an affidavit when seeking public grants.  The Catholic news outlet Asia News reports that advocacy groups fear that the new rules are meant to target Christian ministries that serve the poor and marginalized.  The head

Authorities in India are reportedly now requiring employees of foreign-funded nonprofits to sign notarized affidavits saying they will not engage in religious conversion. India's Home Ministry announced Monday restrictive amendments to the Foreigners Contribution Regulation Act (FCRA), according to the Economic Times. The new requirement comes about two years after the Christian child sponsorship organization Compassion International was forced out of the country over a crackdown on foreign aid. India's Ministry of Home Affairs announced that each member or functionary of a nongovernmental organization will need to file an affidavit attested by a notary declaring that they have not been involved in any act of religious conversion or prosecuted for communal disharmony. Previous rules required only top office-bearers to give an affidavit when seeking public grants. The Catholic news outlet Asia News reports that advocacy groups fear that the new rules are meant to target Christian ministries that serve the poor and marginalized. The head of India's Home Ministry, Amit Shah, is also the president of the Hindu nationalist-aligned Bharatiya Janata Party. Since BJP's rise to power with the election of Prime Minister Narendra Modi in 2014, persecution against Christians and other religious minorities has drastically increased. "These new modifications will reignite fears that NGOs will be selectively

Hindu extremists and police in eastern India this month ordered jailed Christians to stop gathering for worship, with the extremists threatening to bring a venomous snake to bite a pastor’s wife, sources said. The house-church pastor, his family and other Christians had been arrested in Jharkhand state after the hardline Hindus disrupted their worship, beat the pastor and live-streamed hostile commentary on Facebook, with one passerby telling the Hindu extremist leader the Christians “should be sacrificed alive.” Following the Sept. 8 attack on the house church in Domchanch village, Koderma District, police temporarily locked up and threatened pastor Manohar Prasad Varnwal – whose ability to walk is impaired by polio – along with his wife, children and some church members. Tensions have been high in Jharkhand state since the murder of a 23-year-old Christian mother in the suburbs of capital Ranchi last month. “The Bajrang Dal, youth militant wing of Vishwa Hindu Parishad [Hindu extremist World Hindu Council] have become active in the state,” area pastor Rajesh Kumar Pandit told Morning Star News. “They are in talks with prominent Hindu leaders and police administration to stop Christian prayers.” Church leaders have received warnings that scores of Bajrang Dal members met earlier this month to plan an attack on

 A retired pastor, his wife and their sons are in hiding from police after a Hindu extremist mob injured them in a gruesome assault in northern India, sources said. Patram Mangala, retired Church of North India pastor now helping to run St. John School in Sohna, Gurugram District in Haryana state, sustained injuries to his nose when he was hit with a spade in the face, and his 28-year-old son Abhishek Mangala lost four front teeth and ruptured blood vessels in his eye in the Sept. 22 attack. Pastor Mangala’s 65-year-old wife Sarla Mangala sustained an injury under her right eye apart from internal injuries to her body, and their son Raj Kumar Mangala, 40, sustained internal injuries in the attack, which appeared to be rooted in a recent court judgment against the Hindus in their attempt to erect a Hindu idol on the property, the retired pastor said. The 68-year-old Pastor Mangala and his wife were cleaning their front yard in the early evening when a group of Hindu extremists with wooden sticks surrounded them and began to assault them, he said. Between 30 to 40 other people then joined in the assault. Pastor Mangala’s sons ran to help their parents but were also attacked.

Police broke up a congregational gathering of 6,000 worshippers in northern India on Tuesday (Oct. 15) after Hindu extremists leveled false charges of black magic, arms possession and forcible conversion against the pastor, sources said. An administrative officer from Bahraich District, Uttar Pradesh, arrived with police in Pandeypurwa village, in Hardi police jurisdiction, announcing that the outdoor venue for the gathering had to be vacated by 8 a.m., said 32-year-old pastor Santosh Jaiswal. “At least 6,000 were present for prayers, and within minutes the congregation scattered, and the police dismantled the stage and barricades,” Pastor Jaiswal told Morning Star News. “I have received information that I have been booked for insulting religious beliefs and for possessing arms, but I had never spoken about any religions. I don’t possess any weapons.” The administrative officer, Surendranath Tripathy, and officer Shankar Prasad investigated allegations of forced conversion and found no evidence against Jaiswal, but police ordered him to stop the worship services, the pastor said. He relocated to the area to proclaim Christ among rural villagers on the border with Nepal less than seven months ago, he said. Pastor Jaiswal said that officers Tripathy and Prasad accused him of performing black magic on Hindus. “About a week before

A pastor in western India suffered severe injuries to his head and back on Tuesday (Oct. 22) after Hindu extremists beat him unconscious for visiting a Christian in a neighboring village, sources said. The eight assailants left pastor Ramesh Pargi in a pool of blood after surrounding and assaulting him, pastor Shantilal Virabhai Kalaswa and his wife Malika Kalaswa as they made their way out of Jamboti village, Dahod District, in Gujarat state on their way home to Dhadhela village four miles away. “They broke my body completely,” Pastor Pargi told Morning Star News via video conference, visibly in pain as he spoke from his bed at Dhun Orthopedic Hospital in Jhalod, Dahod District. “As they beat me, they were repeating, ‘Do not come to our village either to visit or to preach – we do not want Christians to enter our village.’” His head injury required five stitches. “He lost about 1,500 milliliters [1.5 liters] of blood from his head on the spot where he lay unconscious,” said pastor Surmal Damor, displaying Pastor Pargi’s blood-stained shirt as he visited him at the hospital. “His shirt, trouser and undershirt are soaked in blood. It was so scary.” Pastor Pargi said he had no idea who

Followers of a Hindu religion in India seized a Protestant church and removed its cross and held a "purification" ceremony in the building that was once used to worship Jesus Christ.  UCA News reported that on Oct. 20, 50 tribunal people from the Sarna faith took down the cross from Vishwa Vani church in Khadnga village, Jharkhand state. They converted the building into a community hall following a purification ceremony. The Sarna people, who make up close to 5 million in India, have claimed that Christian missionaries have taken over thousands of acres of tribal land in violation of state law, buildings churches, schools, hospitals and other establishments with the mission of converting others to Christianity. Pastor Emmanuel Kujur, coordinator of the Protestant group in the state, said that the ground on which the church was built on was disputed, adding that it had been donated by a tribal Christian. He clarified that a local magistrate ruled that the land belonged to the government. "But that does not give anyone the right to capture the church. The dispute continues between the brothers. Until it is settled, how can someone take it over?" the pastor asked. Catholic Bishop Vincent Barwa of Simdega argued that there are political undertones