Officials in India exhumed the body of a tribal man without his sons' consent after villagers attacked Christians for burying it on land of Christian relatives, arguing that it would insult their deity, sources said.
The exhumation of the body in Chhattisgarh state’s Kanker District last month without the consent of the family left them frantically searching for it and ultimately forced them to go to court demanding answers. The administration then buried him in a Christian cemetery, projecting him as a Christian, the sources said.
Relatives of the late Chamru Ram Salam, who was an adherent of traditional tribal religion, await the final judgment from the Chhattisgarh High Court after the court’s interim order identified the deceased and the petitioner as Christians in an attempt to justify the burial in a Christian cemetery. The non-Christian petitioner denied that he or his father followed the Christian faith, sources said.
After the Dec. 16 burial – carried out according to tribal customs – more than 500 tribal villagers tried to destroy Chamru Ram Salam’s grave and then attacked his family and about 150 Christians visiting them in Bedetevda village, later setting his house and three church buildings ablaze.
The mob claimed the burial site to be a sacred ground dedicated to a village deity and, because half of Salam’s family follows the Christian faith, said the burial was an insult to their deity, according to a source who requested anonymity.
With another, larger attack planned for Dec. 18, local police that day exhumed the body. The deceased’s son, Rajman Salam, said he and his family fled for their lives on Dec. 18 and returned only last week.
He said they had no option but to go to court to determine where his father’s body was.
“The administration did not take permission from us, his immediate family, before exhuming his body,” said Rajman Salam, a Christian and head of Bedetevda village. “They exhumed his body and just took it away. We did not know where they had kept it, nor did we know if they had buried him elsewhere.”
Salam’s brother, Ram Singh Salam, a follower of tribal religion, approached the state High Court in Bilaspur on Dec. 20, demanding the Kanker administration return his father’s body to him so that he could bury it according to tribal customs, the petition stated.
“The Additional Advocate General gave false statement in the court stating that my father and elder brother follow the Christian faith and therefore the administration had buried the body of my deceased father in Dhamtari Christian Cemetery [63 miles from Salam’s village],” Rajman Salam said.
The Additional Advocate General had also submitted to the court that the burial of the body in Dhamtari Christian Cemetery took place in the presence of Rajman Salam’s mother and older brother’s wife.
“After my brother filed the case, the administration forcefully took my mother and sister-in-law to the Dhamtari Christian Cemetery and buried my father,” Rajman Salam said.
In a video interview circulated on social media, Ram Singh Salam clearly stated that he, his wife and mother do not follow the Christian faith, and that neither did his father.
“When they themselves are tribals, why would they willingly witness to the burial?” Rajman Salam asked, alleging foul play.
Before exhuming his father’s body, the Kanker administration made his mother and sister-in-law give their thumb prints on documents without informing them what they were, “so that now they can tell the court that they took permission from the family before exhuming the body.”
A hearing scheduled for Jan. 5 and then Jan. 9 was postponed as the family awaits a verdict.
House and Three Churches Set Ablaze
Three out of five sons of Chamru Ram Salam have put their faith in Christ, the first to do so 20 years ago.
After Chamru Ram Salam died at age 65 on the evening of Dec. 15, Rajman Salam called the prominent elders of the village and requested they show up in the morning to carry out his father’s burial according to tribal customs.
“As my father did not practice Christianity, we decided to bury him according to tribal customs,” Rajman Salam confirmed to Morning Star News.
Six villagers showed up in the morning, and Rajman Salam asked them to bury his father with the assistance of the deceased’s oldest son – Ram Singh Salam, who also follows tribal religion. Rajman Salam requested they “allow the three Christian sons to put a fist of mud in the grave after all the tribal rituals are done,” he said.
Sukdu Ram, a political opponent of Rajman Salam who lost the last Panchayat (village council) elections against him, mobilized the villagers, Rajman Salam said.
“Sukdu Ram grabbed the opportunity to settle scores with me,” he said. “He instigated the villagers to revolt.”
With the family having already decided to bury their father on their private property, they then decided to go ahead without the help and support of the villagers. They buried the body according to tribal customs, Rajman Salam told Morning Star News.
The following day, Dec. 17, about 150 pastors and Christian leaders from in and around Kanker District visited the family home to pay their condolences. While they were all in the house, a mob of 500 to 600 people with thick wooden sticks, slingshots and stones attacked.
“Sukdu Ram and others had called Hindu right-wing groups who joined forces with the villagers and demanded from the family that Chamru Ram’s body be exhumed,” said Rajman Salam.
The mob began to assault the family and the Christians visiting them. A pastor present said on condition of anonymity that they beat him with wooden sticks, and as he fled for his life, he jumped wooden fences and twisted his ankle.
“Somehow, I managed to get to my motorbike and took to the jungle to escape the mob fury,” he said. “I drove for four miles on the thin trail in the jungle before I hit the highway.”
He said the attack lasted two hours before police arrived and managed to restore order. Anticipating tension and further violence, authorities called in more forces.
Rajman Salam’s sister-in-law Lalita and his brother Ram Singh sustained serious head injuries, as did Pastor Siddhnath Chandra and several other Christians present to pay their condolences.
The same evening, the Hindu nationalists and villagers jointly planned an attack on a larger scale for the following day, Dec. 18, the source said.
“They sent messages to each house in 45 nearby villages threatening each home to send at least one, if not more, adult member of each family,” he said. “The village and the community would ostracize any house that did not oblige.”
While a few pastors paying respects to the bereaved family escaped during the attack the previous day, many of them had remained, said the source.
A mob of more than 3,000 people from 45 villages gathered with sharp tools, wooden sticks, stones and slingshots the morning of Dec. 18. The mob pressured the police force to exhume the body and then went to Rajman Salam’s house, attacking the family and the pastors who were visiting them.
They damaged his entire house, looted belongings, and destroyed a year’s worth of grain supply in their barn.
“The mob stole cash estimated at $3,000, Salam’s business and gold ornaments from Rajman’s his house, besides all the other things that were looted and the property vandalized,” said Pastor Salim Hakku, a Christian leader from Jagdalpur, Bastar District, who sheltered Rajman Salam and other Christians for several weeks after the attack. “The mob then set his house on fire and then turned to the church, which is built on Rajman’s property adjoining his house, vandalized it, and set it on fire too.”
After setting fire to and damaging the church structure and burning Bibles, the agitated mob ran almost two miles to another church building in Majbada village, then another in different village, both falling under the jurisdiction of the Amabeda police station, and set them on fire, Rajman Salam said.
A large number of police officers tried hard to control the mob, he said.
“The mob used slingshots to hit the Christians and the police force and pelted huge stone at us,” Rajman Salam said.
Local media reported the mob also severely assaulted a policeman trying to curtail the violence.
After Rajman Salam submitted a written memorandum on Dec. 22 to the Amabeda officer in-charge to act against the culprits, another incident occurred on Dec. 28 when a mob attacked and vandalized 15 Christian homes, six miles from Badetevda in Pusagaon village.
There were 36 Christian families in Badetevda village, and about 150 residents abandoned their homes and fled for their lives because of the attack, Pastor Hakku said. Some who sheltered with him have gradually started to return to the village, and last week Rajman Salam also returned to his home.
“Due to opposition, fear and pressure, all the families except four recanted the Christian faith,” Pastor Hakku said.
While more than 100 Christians usually attend Sunday worship in the now-closed Badetevda church, only a few of them made the trip to Jagdalpur on Jan. 11 to join Pastor Hakku’s church service. Other families who had fled and were staying with Pastor Hakku attended the service.
Since the Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) assumed power in 2023, tensions have intensified, an anonymous source said.
“The current situation in Chhattisgarh is alarming,” he said. “Since BJP came into power in the state and with their government already at the center, things for Christians have become horrifying.”
Almost no congregations are meeting in Kanker District except a few mainstream churches, he said.
“It has become impossible for me to leave my house without being noticed,” he said. “If I enter any home, I immediately get a call from the police station, enquiring about the reason for my visit to that house.”
Attacking any religious venue is against the constitutional norms of India, and authorities should take strict action against those who spread violence and hatred in this form, said Pastor Hakku.
“Breaking or burning our churches will not stop us from worshipping,” he said. “We don’t need buildings to worship our God; we can sit under the shade of any tree and pray.”
The hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, against non-Hindus has emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of the country to attack Christians since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in May 2014, religious rights advocates say.
India ranked 12th on Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, up from 31st in 2013 before Modi came to power.
