(UCAN): Tribal Christians in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh silently marched through the streets on June 24, protesting increased hate campaigns and violent attacks by hardline Hindu groups.
“We had to come to the streets as our prayers and plight have not been heard even after repeated complaints to the authorities,” Arun Pannalal, president of Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, said on June 26.
They walked through Motibag town in Raipur district with placards that read: “Stop violence against Christians,” “We want justice,” and “We will not tolerate insults in the name of religion.”
Pannalal said that hardline Hindu groups falsely accused Christians of religious conversion, pronounced them guilty, and punished them on the spot. “Christians have been beaten up in front of policemen who are supposed to protect them,” the lay leader said.
A tribal Christian leader who did not wish to be named said that on June 12, four Christian families were violently attacked by a Hindu mob in Jagdalpur town. They were told to renounce their faith within 10 days.
Two of the victims lost consciousness during the attack, and three others, including one with a broken leg, were admitted to a hospital.
Tribal Christians in the area have endured mob aggression amid a lack of police protection for a year and a half.
Mukti Prakash Tirkey, a Catholic activist in New Delhi, said the state’s Narayanpur and Kondagaon districts have seen intense violence against tribal Christians and their institutions since December 2022.
Over 1,000 tribal Christians, including pregnant women, children and the elderly, have been forced to flee their ancestral villages. Many had to escape to the forests in the bitterly cold winter.
The local authorities have proven ineffective in diffusing the situation, and the violence continues, Tirkey alleged.
Christians make up less than two per cent of Chhattisgarh’s 30 million people.
Meanwhile, the United Christian Forum, a watchdog body that records Christian persecution in the country, said that at least 23 cases of violence against Christians have been recorded in the third week of June.
