JAGDALPUR, India — A mob of more than 100 radical Hindu nationalists armed with sickles and iron rods attacked seven Christians as they dug a grave for a fellow believer in a village roughly 16 miles south of Jagdalpur in the Bastar tribal belt of Chhattisgarh, India, the U.S.-based monitoring group International Christian Concern reported.
The attack, which took place April 13, left all seven Christians hospitalized with severe injuries. Among them was 32-year-old Mangu, whose head wound still bore fresh sutures, and 60-year-old Jaggu, who described the assault to ICC. “I couldn’t keep up with the aggressive mob as they chased me,” Jaggu said. “I fell to the ground, and one of the attackers grabbed a sharp stone and struck me on the head. My clothes were drenched in blood as I continued to receive punches and blows all over my body.”
The attackers claimed that burying a Christian body in the village would defile the community and the soil. The deceased believer’s body remained unburied for three days before authorities, with police assistance, transported it nearly 20 miles away for burial. ICC reported more than 35 incidents related to Christian burials in the past year alone in which violence erupted against Christians in the region. “Almost all Christians in Chhattisgarh are unable to bury their dead in their own villages,” an anonymous Christian leader told ICC. “This should be considered a basic human right, and the state is supposed to ensure dignified burials. However, the pain of transporting the deceased to faraway cities is both emotionally distressing and financially unaffordable for poor Christians.”
The burial violence is part of a broader pattern of persecution that has intensified since the rise of the BJP at the federal level in 2014. Christians in the village have been banned from purchasing goods at the only grocery store, denied access to the public water source, and refused work opportunities. Despite the pressure, the local church congregation has grown from 30 believers to nearly 200 members. Bijlu, one of the seven injured, told ICC he had once participated in attacks on Christians before his own conversion three years ago. “Once I was part of the attackers,” Bijlu said. “But now I am happy to testify that Jesus healed my wife from a deadly disease, and he gave me peace and hope in my life. I am willing to pay the price for my faith.”
Two weeks after the burial attack, on April 26, a mob of nearly 70 Hindu nationalists stormed a worship gathering on the outskirts of Jagdalpur and dragged Pastor Patra from the house where he was praying with his congregation. “I have been threatened and abused several times in the past for conducting worship service, but this time my family and I had to flee the village because our lives were in danger,” Pastor Patra told ICC. “They pulled me out and started beating me.” He said he was searching for a rented house in town but that landlords routinely refuse to rent to Christians, and “for a pastor, it is even more difficult.”
In Sukma district, 10 Christian families were forced to flee their village and are now displaced more than 30 miles from their homes, sheltering in a local church without basic facilities. Santosh, who fled roughly 125 miles with his wife and two children, told ICC that village leaders gave him an ultimatum: “They told me, ‘If you deny Jesus, you will be allowed to live in this house and remain in the village. If not, we will lock the doors of your house, and you must leave the village.’” His children’s education has been severely disrupted. “At times I feel completely lost,” Santosh said. “I cannot attend family events anymore, whether funerals, birthdays, weddings, or other important occasions. I have been cut off from my own people.”
The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has designated India a “country of particular concern” in recent annual reports. USCIRF’s next annual report is expected later this year.