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May 14, 2007

Indian church council urges action after attacks on Christians

by Anto Akkara
Ecumenical News International

BANGALORE, India — The National Council of Churches in India has called on the authorities to act immediately to restore the rule of law, following a number of attacks against Christians in recent weeks.

     The council urged state governments to clamp down on what it said were Hindu fundamentalist groups “responsible for fanning communal hatred and social tension.”

     The NCCI, which groups 29 Orthodox and Protestant churches, made its call in a May 9 statement that followed the beating up of two Christian evangelists the previous day in the Kolhapur district of Maharashtra state, in western India.

     Television footage showed a group of Hindus kicking and punching the pastors.

     “I had to switch off the TV as the visuals were horrible,” Bishop D. K. Sahu, the NCCI's general secretary, told Ecumenical News International from his office in Nagpur in central India.

     Eleven people were arrested after the attack, The Associated Press reported on May 9.

     More than 20 cases of serious attacks on church personnel have been reported in the past four weeks. The NCCI described the incidents as being of “major concern to all law-abiding Christians in the country.”

     The Evangelical Fellowship of India, in a statement, condemned the latest attacks. The evangelists, named as pastors Ajit and Ramesh, had been conducting a baptism ceremony for seven people in a local river when they were set upon.

     Their attackers accused the evangelists of forcibly converting poor Hindus, the Dailyindia.com news service reported.