Volume 7 Issue 14

Police in India File Charges against Pastors for Refuting False Account of Attack, Sources Say

HYDERABAD, India, March 22, 2019 (Morning Star News) – Three pastors in western India have been criminally charged in retaliation for refuting a false account of a Hindu extremist attack on six Christians that left a teenage girl unconscious, sources said.

Three of the six Christians beaten in Maharashtra state this month were also charged in retaliation for reporting the assault that left them with injuries requiring hospital treatment, said pastor Pandharinath Bhagya Gowri, one of the accused church leaders. 

Police who took exception to Pastor Gowri and two other pastors trying to correct a false report about the beating later charged them with the same accusations filed against the assailants, such as house trespass with intent to assault, even though the church leaders were not even present during the attack, he said.

Hard-line Hindus in Bandhan village, Palghar District in February had cut the Christians’ water supply and warned them that worse would happen if they did not renounce their faith, Pastor Gowri told Morning Star News. On March 1 a mob of Hindu extremists showed up in the neighborhood of three Christian families, burst into their homes and started beating and kicking them, he said.

“At least six Christians including women and children got injured in the attack,” Gowri told Morning Star News.

Teenage Christian Sapna Dodhade was beaten unconscious, and the Hindu extremists continued striking her and the five others even after they fell limp, the pastor said.

“The young Christian could not take their beating, she fell unconscious,” he said, adding that a team of local pastors rushed to Bandhan that day to bring the injured to a hospital in a nearby town. “Her condition was serious. While she was getting treated at the government hospital in Palghar along with other injured Christians, police officers came to record the victims’ statements.”

As the victims told Inspector Shidava Jaybhave about the ordeal they had suffered for attending church services at a neighboring village, another officer accompanying her “interrupted the victims, and he began narrating his own version of events,” Pastor Gowri said.

“It was totally a false narrative, and he was misguiding officer Jaybhave by telling lies,” he told Morning Star News. “I informed her, ‘Madam, the constable is trying to divert the matter,’ but she shouted at me and asked me to shut my mouth.”

Pastors Sainath Ambo Rawate and Navashu Mangalya Jadhav joined him in telling her that Christians had been beaten severely enough to be hospitalized and that the matter should not be taken lightly, but she refused to listen and threatened to file charges against them, he said.

“We told her, ‘Had police booked cases and taken action against villagers who were harassing Christians, this day would not have come,’” Pastor Gowri told Morning Star News. “But this went wrong with her. It must have chafed her ego that ‘illiterate villagers’ were questioning the police.”

On March 3, pastors received a phone call from police informing them that Inspector Jaybhave had summoned them to Manora police station, he said. There the three pastors discovered that a counter case had been filed against them and three of the victims of the attack on the same charges filed against the Hindu extremists: House trespass with intent to cause assault, unlawful assembly, rioting and criminal intimidation.

“After a few moments passed by, she told us that we are in her custody and cannot go from there unless we furnished the bail procedure by paying some amount,” he said. “We were not even present at the site of attack, and the victims are helpless, bedridden because of the assault, but police booked us.”

With the help of an attorney, the pastors were released on bail after spending the day in custody.

Inspector Jaybhave was not available for comment, and officer Avinash Dakre of the Manor police station claimed that she “has no role in this.”
Dakre told Morning Star News that Pastor Jadhav was arrested because the Christians’ opponents told him that he visits the village often, “hence we suspect his involvement in this matter.”

Asked the basis for arresting and charging the pastors in the Bandhan attack, Dakre said, “That is not an issue; if they are not involved, I will consider striking down the charges before filing the charge sheet.”

He declined to comment on Hindu extremist targeting of Christians for holding worship services, saying he was only recently posted to the police station and that the investigation was ongoing.

Pastor Gowri said area Christians had been facing harassment for three months prior to the March 1 attack, leading them to file three police complaints. Police registered First Information Reports (FIRs) but failed to name the accused and closed the cases without investigating, he said.

As opposition to Christian worship rose, Mahima Dumada had filed a police complaint on Feb. 11, and police registered cases charging hard-line Hindu villagers with insults to provoke breach of peace and criminal intimidation, he said. In retaliation, the villagers cut the supply of water to Christian families.

“By March 1, it was already three days since the water pipeline was disconnected,” Pastor Gowri said. “They threatened the Christians, warning them to stop attending the church and renounce Christianity if they wanted the water supply back, or face the consequences.” 

Another Attack

On Feb. 24, members of the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) stormed into a house church in Gadgapara village, also in Palghar District, where at least 30 Christians were gathered for Sunday worship. They disrupted Holy Communion and assaulted the Christians, including women and children, sources said.

The Maharashtra unit of legal advocacy group Alliance Defending Freedom-India brought the matter before the area police inspector, identified only as Ganshyam, and the harassment stopped.

Following complaints to Superintendent of Police Gaurav Singh, officers at Virar East police station filed cases against assailants for unlawful assemblies, rioting, voluntarily causing hurt, insult intended to provoke breach of peace and criminal intimidation.

ADF-India recorded five incidents of hostilities against Christians from Maharashtra in the first quarter of 2019, including an attack on a catholic institution in Kolhapur District. There has been a significant rise in attacks against Christians in Maharashtra since 2014, according to Baban Kamble, a Christian leader and human rights defender from Maharashtra.

“Particularly in Palghar District, we have seen the highest number of attacks,” Kamble said. “Every next week, there have been mob attacks on churches. In Manor and Virar areas of the district, churches have long been shut after they came under the attack of Hindu extremist mobs.”

Life-threatening attacks have taken place such as one in Kowad, and cases have been filed and the accused brought to court, “but the real faces who are behind these attacks have not been exposed yet,” Kamble said.

“Recently, a Christian’s leg had to be amputated after he was brutally attacked by Hindutva [Hindu nationalist] activists,” Kamble said. “We are in the mission of building a pack of young Christian volunteers who can reach out to the victims in cases of persecution. We need to be prepared to deal with incidents of violence and discrimination against

Christians and must raise our voice through peaceful protests, and also before the parliament and legislative assemblies of the states.”

India is ranked 10^th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2019 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian. The country was 31st in 2013, but its position has been worse each year since Narendra Modi of the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 2014. 

China Shuts Down, Changes Locks on 1,000-Member Church

China shut down a well-known 1,000-member Beijing church over the weekend and then changed the locks to prevent members from returning to the building.

The congregation, Shouwang Church, made worldwide headlines five years ago when it stood up to Chinese leaders and refused to register with the government. Its senior pastor, Jin Tian-ming, remains under house arrest.

In the latest confrontation, more than 20 Chinese police and government officials raided a children’s Bible school class Saturday and told church leaders the congregation could no longer meet, according to International Christian Concern (ICC). 

Chinese officials also ordered the pastor, Zhang Xiaofeng, to sign a document claiming the church “has conducted activities as a social organization without registration, which is in violation of Regulations of Religious Affairs and Regulations on the Registration and Management of Social Organizations.”

Government officials then changed the building’s locks. Shouwang is one of the largest house churches in Beijing, according to ICC.

Churches are required to register in China. Registration comes with restrictions on how the Christian faith can be practiced.

“China’s disregard of religious freedom for its 1.4 billion citizens is deplorable,” said Gina Goh, ICC’s regional manager. “Christians outside of the state-sanctioned churches can no longer worship without fearing of harassment, detention or even imprisonment. Even official churches face increasing pressure to exalt the Communist Party over God. The international community should continue to press China over its human rights abuses until it is willing to make positive change.”   

Said Bob Fu, president of ChinaAid, “China’s oppression against house churches will not be loosened. A systematic, in-the-name-of-law crackdown will continue to take place."