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Christians attacked in Uttar Pradesh in prayer meeting

IndiaChristians attacked in Uttar Pradesh in prayer meeting

Six Hindutva extremists in Uttar Pradesh broke into a Christian home during prayers, attacking minors as well taking them into custody

An advocate, Teeya Rachel, tagging the Uttar Pradesh police shared, “Around noon, the police from Khaga PS forcefully entered the Christian’s home with the religious fanatics and had brutally attacked the Christians including minors, and took them into custody. Kindly look into the matter urgently

She also wrote, “Batch of six religious extremists and officers@Khaga entered a Christian’s home, beaten up the Christians gathered peacefully for prayers. Police took congregation leader Ram Lal and two minors into custody.”

The Christians are still under police custody having been booked under IPC and UP’s unlawful ordinance and the reasons are unclear. It has become a common practice for the Hindutva extremists to barge into Christian prayer meetings on false charges of conversions, in an attempt to subvert home prayers and these have spiraled after the anti-conversion laws came into effect in eight states in India.

The Supreme Court had asked the Union home ministry to get verification reports from 8 states on the alleged attacks on Christians.  According to a report by Live Law, the Supreme Court gave SC gave the Ministry of Home Affairs two months to submit the report on the attack from these eight states, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Odisha, Karnataka and Jharkhand on steps taken on alleged attacks on Christians.

The petitioners sought an investigation by special investigation teams and the registration of cases against the accused. The bench said it was not assuming the allegations were true and would wait for the verification reports.

Earlier, the Archbishop Of Bangalore Diocese Dr Peter Machado along with the National Solidarity Forum, and the Evangelical Fellowship of India said that the present PIL has been filed against the “sinister phenomena of violence” and “targeted hate speech” against the Christian community of the country by vigilante groups and members of Hindutva right-wing organizations. It submits that such violence has been rising owing to the failure of the State machinery to protect its own citizens.

The petition argues that there is a failure by the Central and State Governments and other State machinery in taking immediate and necessary actions against groups that have caused widespread violence and hate speech against the Christian community including attacks at their places of worship and other institutions run by them.

There have been 700 instances of violence against Christians between 2021-2022.  Senior Advocate, Mr Colin Gonsalves appearing on behalf of the petitioner submitted that though a clean chit has been given by the Centre to the police officials in their affidavit, it is in stark contrast to the data provided in the plea and response filed by the petitioner.

Due to the violence, on the call given by the Masihi Maha Sabha (MMS), Christians from various denominations, including the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of North India (CNI), the Salvation Army, and the Methodist Church, united under the banner of the MMS, holding a candlelight prayer service at their respective churches to pray for peace and harmony following the attack on a church here earlier.

The Christian community has been involved in peace-building efforts. Till recently, we enjoyed the patronage of people of all faiths. However, it is painful for us to find ourselves being targeted for persecution on the completely baseless charge of conversion of people by force and allurements — Dr PK Samantaroy, President of MMS

It is alarming that the police are in synch with local goons to terrorize Christians in certain BJP-ruled states in India.

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