Hindu terrorists attacked seven Christians after they found out they were at a house praying for a sick man. They dragged them into the streets by their hair and then began beating them with sticks while one of them shouted ‘Come, let us burn them alive.’ Somebody called police, and when the police arrived they did not arrest any of the Hindus who started the violence, but instead the Christians for the ‘crime’ of ‘hurting the religious feelings’ of Hindus:
Seven Christians in India have been booked on charges of hurting religious feelings after Hindu extremists savagely beat them when they gathered to pray for a sick man at his home, sources said.
Police in Mathura, Uttar Pradesh state on Dec. 4 charged the six Christian men and one woman with “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings” after a mob of about 20 Hindus led by members of the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) entered the house porch and attacked those present.
The six Christian men were taken into custody, while the woman was not immediately arrested due to the absence of female police required to detain her, sources said.
Anita Masih, a former Hindu who converted to Christianity nearly 30 years ago, was on her way to New Delhi with other Christians for a prayer fellowship and stopped at her sister Mamta Valmiki’s house in Eroli Gurjar village to pray for her ill husband. Valmiki’s son had been healed after Masih prayed for him, and Valmiki asked her sister and the Christians to pray for her husband.
Accompanying Masih were Christians including a pastor with Harvest Mission based in Kosi Kalan, Mathura District.
Valmiki, a 35-year-old Hindu of the below-caste Dalit people, told Morning Star News that she had implored her sister to visit her house along with the pastor and other Christians in order to pray for her husband, who was “extremely unwell,” and for her 16-year-old daughter, whose marriage she had recently arranged.
“I requested her to halt on her way to Delhi and pray for my household, that we might be blessed,” Valmiki said.
After seating the guests in a porch area on the premises of the house with about 12 other female members of her family, Valmiki asked if they would start a worship song while she went to get them water.
The mob then attacked, led by her father-in-law’s older brother, Lal Singh, his son and members of RSS, the parent organization of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), Valmiki said.
“They shouted, ‘Attack, attack,’ and pounced on the guests,” Valmiki said, crying bitterly. “They hit them so brutally with hands, legs and foot, using abusive language for the men and women alike, and they blamed them for alluring us to convert.”
Singh told his accomplices, “Kill Anita, her daughter and all these Christians who have come to our village to convert innocent Hindus,” she said. Valmiki said she heard one man shout, “Don’t hit them with hands, get wooden sticks,” and soon some of them brought sticks that they used to beat them.
“Lal Singh caught hold of my [14-year-old] daughter from her hair and banged her head into the wall in full force, and immediately blood oozed out of her ear,” Valmiki said. “Another man shouted, ‘Let’s teach them a lesson; come, let us burn them alive.’ Immediately they started to search for kerosene [paraffin] oil.”
Valmiki later asked Singh why he attacked her daughter, and he said she had gotten in the way of their beating the Christians, and that if she dares to do it again, he would hit her again, she said.
Valmiki begged them to stop as fellow villagers stood by as mere spectators, she said.
“The beatings were so brutal that I could not stand there and see them being beaten to death,” she said. “I left home and ran to fetch some help, but to no avail.”
The assailants damaged pastor Stanley Jacob’s car, took the Christians’ cell phones and Bibles and broke the sound system they were carrying to Delhi, sources said.
Someone called police, and the violence subsided as they arrived and the assailants threw away their wooden sticks, Valmiki said.
“They would have killed the Christians,” she said. “I argued with the police, insisting on being arrested along with the six Christians. I told the policeman, ‘If it is a crime to invite guests at home, then the host should be arrested and not the guests.’”
At the Surir police station, the Christians were charged under Section 295-A of the Indian Penal Code for “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings.” (source)