Christians and Christian institutions are violently attacked several hundred times each year. A landmark event was the case of the Australian Graham Staines and family. Graham Staines, 58, and his sons, Philip, 10, and Timothy, 8, were burnt alive when Hindu fascists doused their jeep in which they were sleeping with kerosene and set it ablaze. When the three terrified occupants tried to break out of the vehicle, the Hindu mob pushed them back into the burning inferno. Staines’ crime was that he had devoted 34 years of his life to serving lepers in India.
Hindu terrorist attacks on Christians in India have increased dramatically during and after the rule of the BJP Government in 1996. There were 109 attacks against Christians in Gujarat in 2001 alone and 155 attacks against Christians in the rest of India – a total of 264 attacks in 2001. The role of the BJP is obvious. Implicitly or explicitly, the BJP which was in power at this time, provided the political and criminal atmosphere for these assailants to act against Christians with impunity and immunity. The following sample case provided by Compass Direct News, an American Christian watchdog, illustrates the problem:
When four tribal Christians in Toranpada village, Maharashtra state, asked for help following an attack by Hindu terrorist last month, police responded by taunting and kicking the victims, then filing charges against them. The four converts filed a complaint at the local police station immediately after the attack. When they returned on June 15 to ask what action had been taken, one police officer told them,“Ask Jesus to call me on my mobile phone”. Three police officers then asked for a demonstration of prayer. When the four Christians knelt down, the officers kicked them and taunted them. The officers then filed charges against them for breaching the peace.(July 6, 2006).
Hindu terror groups suggests that all Christians in Gujarat state should be beheaded. Supreme Court receives petition against Hindu extremists’ anti-Christian material. The CDs were distributed during the rally, and several leaders of the Hindu terror organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), its political wing the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and other terror groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP or World Hindu Council), gave inflammatory speeches against Christians.(See reference,“Event in India Shows Extent of Fear of Christianity,” February 14, 2006).
Women from the village of Nadia “were raped as punishment for changing religion and converting to Christianity”. The authorities,“whether civil, police or the courts failed to listen to the women and give them justice,” said Indira Iyengar, a member of the Madhya Pradesh State Minority Commission.
In an interview she said that the “horrendous crime perpetrated against Christians in Nadia” started last May 28, around 10 pm, when a group of Hindu terror groups attacked five Christians—two women and three men—and held them for a whole day. The two women were raped and the three men suffered serious gunshot wounds. The women, Baishi Pokharia and Rekha Gyarsiya, were able to identify their aggressors, Lulla, Nandla, Kalu, Rewal Singh and Sakaram, all of whom, like their victims, are from the same village. “We got justice no where,” lamented the five victims, who are from a local tribal community. For her part, one of the two women said that the “police told us that our charges were false. They refused to listen. Now, we have no where to go”.
The Washington, DC based human rights group, International Christian Concern (ICC) has learned that Hindu terror groups have actively been campaigning against Christians for close to a decade, yet there is little the government has done to check what continues to fuel India’s worst incidents of religious persecution. Most recently, Hindu terror groups Bajrang Dal and Hindu Jagruti Samiti distributed thousands of anti-Christian leaflets in Chitradurga district in the southern state of Karnataka last month. This campaign resulted in an incident on August 5, when at least 50 extremists attacked more than 10 workers of the Seventh Day Adventist church during the dedication of a new church in Sira area between Tumkur and Chitradurga districts. On August 16, the victimized Christian workers were arrested on charges of “forcible conversion.” ICC research noted that hate campaigns attract several local laws, and yet the media – both local and international, the state and federal governments in India as well as international organizations have a tendency to take note only of “violent incidents” while failing to address the backdrop against which such incidents takes place.
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