Hindu zealots attack Christians over "conversions"
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Hindu zealots attack Christians over "conversions"*
08 May 2007 13:45:31 GMT
Source: Reuters
MUMBAI, May 8 (Reuters) - Hindu hardliners attacked two Christian
missionaries in public in western India on Tuesday, the latest violence
against priests accused by right-wing groups of trying to convert
lower-caste Hindus to Christianity.
Indian TV channels showed Hindu activists kicking and punching the two
young missionaries while dragging them through Kolhapur town in the
southern part of Maharashtra state.
News footage showed an activist knee one missionary in the groin, making
him double up in pain. Another kicked the missionary in the head.
The crowd accused the missionaries of forcibly converting poor Hindus,
and handed them over to police. But a local Christian leader said those
baptised had willingly changed their faith.
"The point is whether it was forced conversion or not is subject to a
police investigation and is not to be judged by a mob," Dolphy D'Souza said.
But police said the two missionaries had been arrested on complaints
that they were fraudulently converting people.
Hardline Hindu groups -- some of them linked to India's main opposition
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- accuse Christian missionaries of bribing
poor tribespeople and lower caste Hindus to change their faith.
Several states ruled by the Hindu nationalist BJP have passed
anti-conversion laws.
Last week, Hindu zealots beat a pastor with sticks and left him bleeding
profusely in Rajasthan state where the BJP is in power.
Christian groups say lower-caste Hindus who convert do so willingly to
escape the highly stratified Hindu caste system.
Christians make up around 2.3 percent of mainly Hindu India's 1.1
billion people.