Heightened hostilities against Christians in India that began late last year continued through a hot summer, with Hindu extremists threatening Christians and forcing them to “reconvert” to Hinduism, church leaders said.
In Rajasthan in the northwest, 10 Christian families in Nakhnool village, near Alwar, have fled after intolerant Hindus harassed and threatened to kill them, area church leaders said.
“Since June 27, we have not been able to have any kind of worship meetings,” area pastor Malkeet Singh told Morning Star News. “The extremists threatened to harm us if we utter the name of Christ or conduct any Christian meetings.”
Tensions grew on July 19 when members of the Hindu extremist Shiv Sena, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in the village held a “homecoming” to Hinduism (Ghar Vapsi) in front of Pastor Pratap Singh’s house.
“About 600 people gathered in front of Pastor Singh’s house, put up the idol of the Hindu god Hanuman, forced Pastor Singh and 10 family members to worship the idol and forced him to sign a paper which said, ‘I am willing to be a Hindu,’” said Rajamman Johnson, regional secretary of the Friends Missionary Prayer Band (FMBP). “They forced them to drink water procured from the Ganga River and put kumkum [red marks] on their foreheads to show that they were now Hindus.”
As the Hindu extremists had threatened to kill him if he continued to lead worship meetings, Pastor Singh had been in hiding for a month. The extremists found him and took him to his house for the ritual, Johnson said.
“The extremists had been following the movement of Pastor Singh closely for a long time, and then they dragged him back from his hiding place to forcefully convert him along with 10 members of his family to Hinduism in an hour-long Ghar Vapsi ceremony,” he said.
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