Christian persecution is escalating worldwide and the level continues to rise in the predominantly Hindu country of India.
The Morning Star News has reported that Hindu extremists beat and looted Christ worshippers in northern India earlier this month, leaving one man unconscious, another with ruptured eardrums and others with internal and external injuries.
Just as service was about to begin, more than 200 members of the Hindu nationalist Vishva Hindu Parishad, and the youth wing of the Bharatiya Janata Party, invaded the House of Prayer church building in Roorkee, Uttarakhand state, brandishing wooden clubs and shouting Hindu nationalist slogans, witnesses told Morning Star News. A small group of around 12 had gathered for the service, including seven women and five men.
The Morning Star News reported that “the assailants were both male and female and beat everyone, including women,” except for 65-year-old Prio Sadhana Portor, who took over as the worship service leader since the death last year of her husband, Dickens R. Lance, from COVID-19. The attackers accused the Christians of forced conversion, Portor said.
All sustained injuries, some of them serious, and the Hindu nationalists stole cash, debit cards, credit cards, cell phones and purses, besides breaking CCTV cameras, the sound system and other equipment, and chairs, she said. None of the attackers have been arrested.
“The moment they entered, they started to break the stuff inside the church and began to beat the congregation members,” Portor said. “We were all set to stream the service online for our online viewers.”
One worshipper, the Morning Star News reported, sustained an internal head injury when his head was thrust onto an electric circuit board inside the worship hall. A 20-year-old man, who wished to remain anonymous, said he was assaulted along with his older brother.
“Out of the mob, groups of about 20 Hindu extremists swarmed together and targeted each worshipper one by one, and everyone was hit without pity,” the man said.
The Christian man whose eardrums were ruptured was robbed of 10,000 rupees ($133 U.S. dollars), his driver’s license, his bank cards and his personal security information, witnesses said. {eoa}
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