Matrix Report
A fact-finding report by civil rights campaigners recorded 305 attacks against Christians in mostly small towns of 21 states between January and September 2021. Almost every incident is followed by a police case against the pastor alleging religious conversion.
Data suggests that attacks on Christians and churches ransacked by the Hindu outfits in India have increased throughout this year in spite of the deadly Covid-19 pandemic, when communities came together to help each other and heal, reports the article-14.com news site.
The report also included incidents of cases filed against the victims, the pastors and their families, accused under various laws.
Article14.com is joint initiative by lawyers, journalists, and academics which addresses threats to and failures of justice and deficiencies in the legal system. It tracks and disseminates issues necessary to safeguard democracy and the rule of law.
The Association for the Protection of Civil Rights, United Against Hate, and United Christian Forum (UCF) jointly led the fact-finding mission and eventually released their report on October 21 on the persecution of Christians inIndia. It highlighted an uptick in attacks on churches and hate speech against Christians, reported the Counter-currents.com.
Prashant Tandon (Sr. Journalist), Nadeem Khan (United Against Hate), Mrs. Minakshi Singh (Unity of Compassion), Laeeq Ahmad Khan (United Against Hate), and Alishan Zafri (Journalist) were members of the team.
On 3 October, while in church for Sunday prayers in Roorkee (Uttarakhand), Pearl Lance, 34, was shoved in the chest by a man she knew. The attacker was one of 242 identified and unidentified men and women who attacked the church and roughed up the small congregation in Solanipuram colony in the old cantonment section of Roorkee, according to a police first information report (FIR) filed later that day.
Situated some 30 km west of pilgrim town Haridwar, Roorkee is famous for Asia’s oldest engineering institute, now an Indian Institute of Technology, and an army cantonment.
The attack was widely reported, the congregation allegedly assaulted by local Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and BJP members and supporters.
Looks like that after brow-beating Indian Muslims, the VHP-RSS-BJP vigilantes are now after their Christian fellow citizens.
No surprise that even western media has been cautioning about the scary situation for the non-Hindu minorities in India.
“India is losing leverage in South Asia as its government tries to reshape the country into a Hindu state. In marginalizing and maligning its minority Muslims at home, Mr. Modi’s government has weakened India’s traditional leadership role of encouraging harmony in a region of many fault lines,” a New York Times op-ed argued in had reported early November.
