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

Hindu extremists brutally attacked a group of about 70 Christians, including children, as they traveled home from a national congress focused on praying for peace in India amid escalating persecution. According to Christian Solidarity Worldwide, three men on motorcycles attacked Christians traveling home from the Third National Congress of the Synod of Pentecostal Churches in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, on Feb 5. The men verbally threatened the passengers before smashing the windshields of the vehicles, causing injury to the driver and passengers, which included women, children and the elderly. Pastor Paul Raj, one of the passengers, immediately called the police, who arrived at the scene a short time later. A First Information Report, which is necessary to start an investigation, has been registered against the perpetrators and investigations have been initiated. Local sources report that the attack is believed to have been perpetrated by religious extremists who were aware of the national congress and planned the ambush on the Christians. CSW’s Chief Executive Mervyn Thomas called the attack a “worrying example of the religious intolerance and violence that is being allowed to fester and take root in the largest democracy in the world.” “Religious minorities in India should feel safe and free to practice and profess their religion or

U.S. president Donald Trump will raise the issue of religious freedom with prime minister Narendra Modi during his visit to India that is starting on February 24, the White House said on Friday. This is not very good news for India because there have been several instances of BJP ministers such as Giriraj Kishore speaking out on why Muslims should not have stayed on in India after 1947, and several cases of sedition cases being filed against Muslim or Christian protesters in some states, especially Karnataka in recent weeks. As usual, this advance intimation of U.S. intent came in an official briefing by the Trump administration to reporters in Washington with no words minced. As the briefing official said, religious freedom is especially important to this regime in Washington.  The timing and nature of the White House is particularly interesting. This pointed mention of the state of religious freedom in India comes a couple of weeks after Secretary of State Mike Pompeo inaugurated a US-led initiative on international religious freedom, and US administration officials indicated that events in India were definite on that radar.  "President Trump will talk about our shared tradition of democracy and religious freedom both in his public remarks and then certainly in private. He will

Police find no evidence for accusations but yield to Hindu extremist pressure. Three Christians in northern India spent more than two months in jail suffering abuse from other prisoners, even though police found no evidence of wrongdoing and the complainant retracted his accusation, sources said. In Uttar Pradesh state’s Mau District, 23-year-old pastor Ajay Kumar, fellow pastor Om Prakash, 20, and another Christian, 62-year-old Kapil Dev Ram, still face fabricated charges after being released on bail late last month. Pastor Kumar said the time they spent in jail was a “nightmare.” “Every night was a traumatic night for us,” Pastor Kumar told Morning Star News. “We did not know when a mob would wake us in the middle of the night and torment us.” Accused of forceful conversion by Hindu extremists who disrupted their Nov. 26 worship at Ram’s home in Daraura village, the two pastors were released on bail on Jan. 27 after two months and a day in jail. Ram was released on Jan. 29 after spending two months and three days in jail. In spite of the ordeal, the pastors managed to explain the gospel of eternal salvation to many prisoners in their barracks, with one putting his faith in Christ. Pastor

President Trump concluded his two-day state visit to India on Tuesday and said the prime minister of India "wants people to have religious freedom very strongly." In a media conference in New Delhi, Trump said "I will say the prime minister was incredible on what he said