50 Christians attacked at Sunday's church service in India

Of Anugrah KumarChristian post collaborator Tuesday, February 25, 2025

Fifty Christians were attacked during a Sunday service in the state of Rajasthan in western India, when a group of about 200 people stormed a church building in Bikaner City. Some participants suffered injuries after they were hit with iron rods, and the attackers vandalized the property before the police arrived.

In the attack, which took place near the end of the job, three worshipers were seriously injured on February 16, while many others wore bruises on their body, reported Group in the UK Christian Solidity Worldwide last week.

The pastor of the church, who asked to remain anonymous for security reasons, said that a new member participated in the job that day and was seen sending messages a few minutes before the crowd entered the church, at which point he ran out of building.

The attackers left in a hurry when the police arrived at the scene. The police questioned the wounded Christians and accused them of forced conversions. The pastor’s children were warned that they should not prove to be their father.

The local authorities then escorted the pastor, his husband and several other Christians at the Mukta Prasad Police Section, where the charges of forced conversion of the crowd were examined. The pastor and his companions were not accused, because no evidence of such an activity was provided.

The members of the church decided not to file a complaint, citing reprisal fears. No measure was taken against the group that invaded the worship.

The attack took place a few weeks after the Rajasthan prohibition of the illegal conversion of the draft law 2025, an anti-conversion measure, was presented before the legislative assembly of the state.

If it becomes a law, people who want to convert voluntarily would be obliged to submit a request to a district magistrate 60 days before. Any conversion determined to be forced would be treated as an offense that cannot be, which could lead to a significant fine and up to 10 years in prison.

The proposed legislation would also change the task of the evidence on those accused of forcing someone to change faith.

Twelve of the 28 states of India applies anti-conversion laws, according to the US Commission for international religious freedom. The measure proposed by Rajasthan follows a trend that includes changes in 2024 in Uttar Pradesh, where an existing anti-conversion law has been modified to impose stricter penalties.

These laws were adopted mainly in the states governed by the Hindu Nationalist Party Bharatiya Janata.

Last December, over 400 individual Christians and 30 church groups, including several Baptist conventions, councils and associations, sent a letter to President Draupadi Murmu and Prime Minister Narendra Modi, conformable at the Baptist standard. The letter asked for an intervention against violent mafia that targeted Christians and other religious minorities. The signatories said that believers from different parts of India were confronted with attacks and intimidation.

The data of a group in India, the Christian United Forum, shows an increase in attacks against Christian communities in the last decade. The group, which manages an assistance line, registered 127 incidents in 2014 and 834 in 2024.

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