Neighbors attack after seeing church leader visit him.A Christian in southern India’s Tamil Nadu state is in hiding after hard-line Hindu neighbors beat him unconscious with iron rods last month, sources said. Santosh Kumar, 35, left his home on Aug. 1 shortly after a church elder visited him in Kamaraj Nagar, Karur District. A Hindu neighbor who saw the elder visit him intercepted Kumar on the road shortly thereafter. “He started shouting at me, ‘Are you a Christian? Why are Christians visiting you?’” Kumar told Morning Star News. Kumar said the neighbor was drunk, and that he asked him, “What is your problem?” before going on his way, but the Hindu stopped him again and began shouting more loudly. Telling Kumar that India was a Hindu country, he asked the Christian why he still lived there, as Kumar asked him to please let him go on his way. “He threatened that he would murder me if I did not vacate my rented house immediately,” Kumar said. Soon two other area Hindus arrived on motorcycles and dragged him to bushes far from the road, he said. “Two persons were ready with iron rods there,” he told Morning Star News. “Two of them held me up while the

CHHATTISGARH CHRISTIAN FORUM HAS DOCUMENTED MORE THAN 200 ATTACKS ON THE STATE'S MINORITY COMMUNITY IN THE PAST TWO YEARS August 30, 2021. A Christian leader in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh has accused the state government of inaction after six incidents of Christian attacks were reported within a week. The latest attack was reported from a remote village in Kabirdham district on Aug. 29. More than 100 Hindu activists beat up a pastor after barging into his house during a prayer service, said Mohit Garg, superintendent of police for the district. The mob also manhandled Pastor Kawalsingh Paraste’s family members and vandalized the house, damaging scriptures, articles of worship and household items, before fleeing. The incident occurred in Polmi village around 11am when the Sunday prayer service was underway, Garg said. “It is very unfortunate that we have witnessed repeated attacks on our Christian brothers and sisters last week. But it is nothing new. We have documented more than 200 such incidents in the state during the past two years,” Chhattisgarh Christian Forum president Arun Pannalal told UCA News. He said what was more unfortunate was that every time the government would try to play down the incidents and push for a compromise between

A pastor’s wife is still bed-ridden after hard-line Sikhs and Hindus broke her leg in an attack on their church last month in northern India, sources said. Carrying swords and wooden rods, the assailants also slashed the head of a church member in the attack on Christians gathered for a meal at the Evangelical Church of God in the Arniwala area of Fazilka District, Punjab state. “The physical injuries were very brutal, so that even over a month after the attack, the injured have not recovered,” pastor Roop Lal told Morning Star News. “The doctors told us the injured area [of his wife’s leg] is totally infected, and the skin in the area developed some kind of boils.” In the July 12 attack, about 15 men also vandalized a security camera and destroyed the church gate and other property, causing damages of about 30,000 rupees (US$404), he said. Pastor Lal’s wife, Raj Rani, underwent two surgeries on her left leg, and 19-year-old Lovepreet Singh received 18 stitches for a wound on his scalp. Surgeons at Faridkot Medical Hospital on July 24 addressed the infection on Rani’s leg, and she underwent a later operation to insert rods for the fracture, Pastor Lal said. Having no money

Two pastors and wife were comforting Hindu who lost family to COVID-19.Three Christians are in jail after hard-line Hindus in northern India last week beat two of them, both pastors, and a Hindu they were comforting in the loss of his family to COVID-19. Hindu neighbors from the upper-caste Thakur community in Phoolpur, Uttar Pradesh state on Aug. 3 attacked 62-year-old Lalji Vishwakarma and the two pastors, the Hindu said. “A mob of Hindu extremist neighbors from the Thakur community barged inside the house and falsely accused me and the pastors visiting my house of forced conversions,” Vishwakarma told Morning Star News. “They have no pity that I have been grieving my family’s death.” Pastor Neel Durai, pastor Vijay Kumar Patel and his wife, Kiran Devi, had come to pray for him and his granddaughters, Vishwakarma said. “I lost my wife, son and daughter-in-law to COVID one after the other,” he said. “My young granddaughters, ages 10 and 12, and I were longing for God’s servants to visit us, pray for us and comfort us.” No one else was invited to join them in the prayers, he said. His two granddaughters were the only others at the house as the pastors began reading from the

A 24-year-old Christian woman in northern India regained the ability to speak nearly a month after she went into shock from a Sikh family choking her unconscious and attacking her sister and mother, sources said. Meenu Kaur Tank remains bed-ridden, on strong medicines, sometimes continues to fall unconscious and still barely speaks following the assault in Ghawaddi village, Ludhiana District in Punjab state, her sister said. “Meenu is unable to come out of shock,” her 27-year-old sister, Harpreet Kaur Tank, told Morning Star News. “She has lost her appetite and hardly talks…[The assailant] caught my sister from the throat and pressed it so hard, almost choking her to death. She fell unconscious.” In the June 20 attack on the widowed mother, sisters and others, five Sikh family members also partially stripped the Christian women as they beat them and reviled them for believing in Christ, sources said. The women, who became Christians in 2016, had just returned from an evening worship service. Munesh Devi and her daughters were attacked in Ludhiana District, Punjab state, India. (Morning Star News)Munesh Devi and her daughters were attacked in Ludhiana District, Punjab state, India. (Morning Star News) Meenu Kaur Tank was rushed to a hospital immediately after the 45-minute

TAMIL NADU VICAR CLAIMS THAT A VIRAL VIDEO OF HIS SPEECH HAD BEEN DOCTORED July 27, 2021. A trial court in Tamil Nadu state has remanded a Catholic priest in judicial custody for 15 days for alleged hate speech among other charges after Hindu groups threatened to launch protests demanding his arrest. Father George Ponnaiah, a vicar of Kuzhithurai Diocese in the southern Indian state, was arrested on July 24 morning as he was heading for an undisclosed destination, apparently after police registered a criminal offense against him at Arumanai police station for alleged hate speech on July 18. A video of the priest that went viral reportedly contained objectionable statements about various religious communities, leaders of the state's ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government and leaders of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) including Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah. In a statement before his arrest, the priest denied the charges, saying someone had doctored the original video to trap him in a false case. He also apologized to religious people. “My speech has been edited and circulated on social media to show that I hurt the sentiments of Hindu brothers and sisters. None of us on the dais said anything hurting

SOCIAL ACTIVIST FATHER STAN SWAMY WAS ARRESTED ACCUSED OF SEDITION AND TERRORISM July 26, 2021. Bombay High Court has withdrawn its oral appreciation for Indian Jesuit Father Stan Swamy, who died under detention early this month, after strong opposition from a government pleader. The court’s withdrawal came on July 23 when it gathered to decide on the nature of investigation needed to find out the circumstances that led to the priest's death on July 5. He was 84.Government pleader Anil Singh, who appeared on behalf of the National Investigation Agency (NIA), which arrested Father Swamy on charges of sedition and terrorism, opposed the judges’ earlier appreciative comments. On July 19, Justices S.S. Shinde and N.J. Jamadar of the top court in Maharashtra state expressed admiration for the works of the Jesuit priest. They said they had “great respect” for his work while hearing his bail application, which was posthumously submitted to help decide on the course of investigation of the priest’s death in judicial custody. “He is such a wonderful person. The kind of service he has rendered to the society. We have great respect for his work. Legally, whatever is there against him is a different matter,” Justice Shinde said. “We don’t have time normally,