Hindu nationalist mobs belonging to Prime Minister Modi’s campaign attack a pastor and his family in the Northern Indian State of Uttar Pradesh.
11/08/2021- India. (FIACONA News Service) The Federation of Indian American Christian Organizations (FIACONA) has learned from witnesses that a group of 20 Hindu nationalists barged into Pastor Anjeet’s house in the northern Indian state of Utter Pradesh on November 5th around 11 PM and started attacking his wife and children rods and whips accusing them of forcefully converting people to Christianity.
The incident took place in Ambedkar Nagar about 350 Kilometers (270 Miles) east of New Delhi, near Shajahanpur in the north Indian state of Uttar Pradesh (UP). Victims were seriously injured. Friends and some neighbors rushed the family members to a local hospital.
According to the sources, this is not the first time, Pastor Anjeet’s family was attacked. The same Hindu nationalists have reportedly abused and assaulted the Pastor and his family in the past. But it was mostly threats and minor physical assaults but no serious injuries. The pastor has reported such assaults but no action was taken against the Hindu nationalist groups.
Several hundred such cases of violence have been reported in the state of UP so far in 2021 alone. Out that over 80 cases have been documented. In many cases, the police have filed charges against the Christian victims and not the Hindu nationalist vigilante groups acting as the Hindu party’s moral police who have attacked them.
In almost all such documented cases, police have used the notorious “Anti-Conversion” law against Christians. However, not a single case against the Christians arrested under such provisions of the law has ever been proven to be true in a court.
The Hindu nationalist leaders of Prime Minister Modi continue to argue that the only reason why people are attending Christian worship meetings is that they have been forcefully converted by native Christian missionaries from other parts of India or that they have been paid money to become Christians.
The Anti-Conversion Laws allow room for the police to interpret even providing education or praying for a sick person as a form of coercion to convert them. So, the government of the Hindu nationalist party argues that their government is not doing anything ‘against the law’. They continue to defend their actions saying that their government will follow the legal process in all such cases while the law itself is designed to harass and intimidate Christians.
In a new turn of events, the state government of Utter Pradesh headed by Prime Minister Modi’s Hindu nationalist party has filed an affidavit defending the anti-conversion Act in the Allahabad High Court stating that it “protects public interest” and maintains “public order”.
