Nine tribal people in India have been released on bail after they sent 13 Christians to the hospital with severe injuries, sources said.
The followers of traditional tribal religion were released on bail on June 15. The Christian families, who had remained away from the village fearing another assault, dared to return to their homes in Sukma District, Chhattisgarh state, to find them “looted beyond recognition,” sources said.
Hunga Madavi, 35, was discharged from the hospital on June 12 after sustaining a severe head injury that caused acute loss of blood.
“My hemoglobin dropped to 3.7 grams, and three units of blood had to be transfused to save my life,” Madavi told Morning Star News.
Madavi’s family, along with the other nine tribal Christian families, had been meeting at a mud-and-thatch house for Sunday worship in Sadrapal village along with 50 to 80 tribal Christians from surrounding villages since 2018.
About 60 Christians were gathered for prayer on May 31 when a mob of 40-50 tribal villagers attacked the gathering at 10 a.m.
“Initially they stood outside both exits of the hall and pulled out one believer at a time,” said Madavi’s wife, 25-year-old Palo Madavi. “Every time a Christian stepped out, they beat him or her with wooden sticks, axes and sickles, to an extent unimaginable.”
The mob then forced their way into the hall, seizing curtain rods in addition to weapons they had carried, and continued assaulting the Christians.
“They beat everyone attending the church – children as young as 2 years old and elderly as old as 70,” Hunga Madavi said. “They spared no one.”
The couple’s 5-year-old daughter was beaten with wooden sticks and sustained injuries to her legs and back.
The mob looted offering money from the prayer hall.
“People had currency kept inside the pages of their Bible,” said Lachchu Tati, a Christian who had been attending church in a nearby village and arrived at the scene when the police arrived. “They attackers robbed all the money, then tore the Bibles apart and scattered them across the floor to be trampled underfoot.”
Hunga Madavi and six others sustained serious head injuries. Ungi Kawasi, 25, suffered a broken leg and was still awaiting an operation at this writing.
After losing the severe amount of blood, Hunga Madavi collapsed unconscious and has no recollection of how he was brought to the hospital. His wife, who is pregnant, was also beaten with sticks until she lost consciousness and woke up in the hospital.
“I have yet to undergo a sonography to check whether my pregnancy is unaffected,” she told Morning Star News.
In all, 13 Christians were admitted to the hospital with severe injuries; six of them required stitches to close open wounds, while the rest sustained internal injuries and bruising, said Hunga Madavi.
“Many lost consciousness while being beaten,” he added. “All 13 are still on medication and recovering from serious injuries.”
Videos and photographs taken immediately after the assault show Christians strewn across the floor – profusely bleeding and disheveled – some unconscious, others disoriented and exhausted from the beating.
One Christian managed to escape and ran to Tongpal police station, five miles away, to report the attack.
“It was only when the police arrived that the assault stopped, otherwise we would have been beaten to death,” Hunga Madavi said.
Two victims sustained serious head injuries; two women and one man fractured their hands; two suffered severe leg injuries, including one with a broken leg awaiting surgery, said Tati.
“One woman fractured her shoulder blade and has been in considerable pain since; 10 to 12 people received stitches for deep cuts that had resulted in open wounds,” he added.
Pretext for Attack
Hunga Madavi’s grandfather previously owned land that relatives continued to farm after the grandfather’s death. When Hunga Madavi’s father died last year, his youngest uncle had the entire property transferred solely into his own name, excluding Madavi’s rightful share of the ancestral land.
He had been appealing to village elders to intervene and ensure a fair distribution of the property. Hunga Madavi said he believes the land dispute was merely a pretext to attack his family and all the Christians.
“If land was the reason, then why assault all the Christians?” he said. “The land dispute is being used as an excuse to attack us.”
Tati said the villagers had long been hostile towards the 10 Christian families.
“These Christians have been facing ostracism at the hands of the villagers for the past four-five years,” he said. The Christian families were barred from fetching water from the village’s common water source; their homes were cut off from the electricity supply; and they denied access to government-distributed free rations. Not only that, none of the Christians were permitted to cross through a non-Christian’s field or use lanes that passed through their lands.”
Tati fled his village within the same Palem Gram Panchayat 15 years ago, as he faced similar ostracism and threats to his life. He absconded to Sukma, 28 miles away, and never returned.
“Under the guise of a land dispute, the villagers planned to rid the village of Christians,” he said.
All 10 Christian families left the village for medical treatment; fearing another assault, they did not return until all were able to do so together.
Police Complaint
From June 1 onward, the villagers looted the Christian homes left behind.
They looted their chicken, goats, grains, rice, money and all that they could find. The 10 families returned on June 14 after attending a worship service in Sukma to find their homes completely ransacked and “looted beyond recognition,” said Hunga Madavi.
All doors had been broken open. The grain stores inside had been either looted or scattered across the floors, allowing cattle to freely enter and feed on whatever remained.
“I had 15 chickens,” said Hunga Madavi, his voice breaking. “They took all of them; killed them, cooked them and fed their families. They also stole Rupees 5,000 cash [$53] that I had kept at home.”
Kava Sidma, owner of the church hall, had several goats, but they were all missing, said Hunga Madavi.
A written complaint was submitted by Hidma Kavasi at Tongpal police station, and a formal complaint under FIR No. 14 was registered at 8 p.m. in the evening of the attack under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) 2023 for voluntarily causing “simple hurt”; unlawful assembly; rioting; rioting while armed with a deadly weapon; obscene acts; and criminal intimidation against 10 identified people.
Nine of the 10 named in the FIR were arrested. All nine were released on bail on June 15, said Madavi.
“The police downplayed the severity of the assault,” Arun Pannalal, president of the Chhattisgarh Christian Forum, told Morning Star News. “While they themselves transported the injured to the hospital, the FIR was filed against only 10 people.”
The sections imposed on the attackers were far too mild, he said.
“Neither a religious angle nor a charge of ‘attempt to murder’ was included – despite blood pouring from people’s bodies,” said Pannalal.
India ranked 12th on Open Doors’ 2026 World Watch List of the countries where it is most difficult to be a Christian, up from 31st in 2013 before Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power. Hostilities against Christians reached 747 incidents in 2025, according to the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India, more than five times the 147 cases documented in 2014.
