Raipur: In Chhattisgarh, Hindutva extremist group Bajrang Dal’s activists crowded a Christian prayer meeting on Sunday and beat up churchgoers. Claiming religious conversion, the group staged protests there while the prayer hall authorities accused the Bajrang Dal protesters of beating up those who arrived there for prayers. The pastor of the prayer hall alleged that the extremist group had beaten devotees in the presence of police.
Yesterday, an attack was also carried out on a Christian clergy group in Odisha. Fr. Lijo, the parish priest of St. Thomas Church in Jaleswar, another priest, two nuns, and a catechist were returning to the parish after attending a prayer service at the house of a Catholic believer in a nearby village when the attack took place. Some women from the village rescued the nuns. The priests and the catechist were detained, abused, and beaten. The attackers forcefully seized the mobile phone of one of the priests, Fr. Lijo, falsely accusing him of proselytising.
Meanwhile, the Bishop of Thamarassery Diocese in Kerala, Mar Remigiose Inchananiyil, sharply condemned recent attacks on priests and nuns in the country. His words were in response to occurrences in Odisha in which clergy and nuns were beaten, as well as an incident in Chhattisgarh earlier this month in which two nuns were detained for eight days. The two incidents at Chhattisgarh and in Jaleswar in Orissa have rocked the Christian community in Kerala.
“Attacks against Christian workers are continuing. When minorities in Pakistan were attacked, the Central government enacted a law granting citizenship to Hindus. Similarly, should minorities in India be forced to move to foreign countries?” he remarked.
He went on to ask whether Christians should be compelled to migrate to Europe, IANS reported.