When a Hindu extremist mob assaulted Christian men, women and children during a church service in India in late September, police jailed the pastor and charged him and four other Christians, sources said.
In Rajasthan state’s Hanumangarh District, several Hindu women intruded into the church building in Nohar city followed by Hindu men young and old at about 10 a.m. on Sep. 28 as the congregation was singing in worship, said 45-year-old Pastor Wazir Singh.
“They let the Hindu women take the forefront – Hindu women attacked Christian women and Hindu men attacked Christian men,” Pastor Singh told Morning Star News following his release from jail on Oct. 4.
The mob forced Pastor Singh to sit and demanded he teach about Hindu deities such as Rama and Ganesha instead of Christ and read to the congregation passages from the Ramayana or Mahabharata Hindu scriptures instead of the Bible, he said. When he responded, “My faith is in Jesus Christ, and my country gives me the right to choose whom I want to believe in and freedom to practice my faith,” they called police and had him arrested.
Pastor Singh’s wife and three other Christians were also named in the police complaint but were not arrested.
“The three Christian men named in the complaint do not belong to my church and were not in my church at that time,” said Pastor Singh, surprised at finding their names in the complaint.
Mob members were from the area around the church and were instigated by members of the Hindu nationalist Bajrang Dal, youth wing of the Hindu nationalist umbrella group Vishva Hindu Parishad, which has an office in the area.
Bajrang Dal members went to the police station and filed a formal complaint. A First Information Report was filed under FIR No. 383 against Pastor Singh, his wife, Jaspal Parmar and two others identified only as Pastor Vinod and Bala, for “offenses of promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place,” “deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage the religious feelings,” “offering gift or restoration of property in consideration of screening offender,” “taking gift to help to recover stolen property,” and “unlawful assembly.”
Officers took Pastor Singh to the Nohar police station and held him until the following day, when he appeared before the Sub-Divisional Magistrate (SDM), who remanded him to custody. When he appeared again before the magistrate on Oct. 3, he was denied release after the judge read a pamphlet presented as evidence against the pastor.
“My name and cell number was printed on it, and it read, ‘Abandon all your idols and come to Jesus Christ,’” Pastor Singh said. “Looking at the pamphlet, she denied my release, and I was sent to jail.”
He denied that he or other Christians printed the pamphlets.
“The members of the Bajrang Dal got the pamphlets printed with my name, cell number and this material to frame me,” Pastor Singh said. “Christians never print materials that demean other religions and uplift Christianity.”
Pastor Singh’s fellow inmates conspired to assault him when they learned the reason for his arrest, he said.
“They said, ‘He converts people,’ and they attacked me, but the Muslim inmates stepped in and rescued me from them,” Pastor Singh told Morning Star News.
He was released on bail the following day, Oct. 4.
Threats and Confiscation
Following his arrest, Hindu neighbors gathered and threatened his family, he said.
A group of women and men knocked at the door of his church building and residence. When Pastor Singh’s wife, Metu Devi, answered the door, the mob stormed in and began to assault Christians, he said. There were 14 Christians inside supporting her and planning their next steps.
“The mob began to assault a Christian ruthlessly, and when an elderly Christian woman tried to rescue him, they hit her as well,” Devi told Morning Star News. “They hit me and young children too. ‘We will not let you stay here – if we find you here, we will assault you,’ they said.”
Though the Christians had been on good terms with their Hindu neighbors, the latter recently had begun to show signs of opposition, Devi said.
“When we would be worshipping in the church, they would start to play Hanuman Chalisa [a Hindu devotional hymn in praise of the deity Hanuman] on amplifiers and try to disrupt our worship time,” she said.
Outwardly the neighbors spoke “nicely,” but in their hearts, “they were conspiring to join hands with the Bajrang Dal and attack us,” Devi said.
The Hindu crowd grew more agitated while assaulting the Christians inside the church building, shouting, “Conversions have been happening in this house, so we will set this house on fire, along with whoever chooses to stay. If you want to live, flee from this house,” she said.
The wounded Christians ran for their lives.
“I fled from home with my children without any belongings and took shelter in the house of another Christian family about half a mile away for two nights,” Devi said.
The Hindu neighbors learned of their location and conspired to attack them.
“Because the Christian host and his family were also at risk for sheltering my family, they decided to send them away,” Pastor Singh said.
In the middle of the night, Devi and her two sons, ages 14 and 10, rode 80 miles to Haryana on a motorbike with another pastor.
Police seized Pastor Singh’s house, his security IDs and cell phone and did not return them to him even after his bail, he said.
“All my belongings are in the house, and we are left with nothing to live on,” Pastor Singh said.
He had lived in the house for more than two years following his move from his home state of Haryana 30 months ago.
“We as a family fled persecution in our hometown in Haryana and changed homes three times in Rajasthan after facing opposition every time, but nothing like what we went through this time,” Pastor Singh said.
He and his family became Christians in 2018, converting from Hinduism after his wife was diagnosed with Hepatitis B and doctors had given up hope of her survival. A distant relative during a phone call told them about Christ, and they went to a church service.
“We started to believe, and my wife was healed. I was able to get rid of all my bad habits like smoking and substance abuse,” said Pastor Singh, adding that they then joined a regular fellowship until he felt called by the Lord to start hiw own fellowship.
Devi said their children have been missing regular school since they fled their home.
“I looked at my children and wondered how we will sustain, but then I found comfort in God’s Word that says He will never forsake us,” she said.
Protest of Anti-Conversion Bill
Following passage of Rajasthan’s anti-conversion bill on Sept. 9, a coalition of civil society organizations condemned the legislation at a press conference in Vinoba Gyan Mandir, Jaipur, on Sept. 26.
The groups, including the People’s Union for Civil Liberties, Jaipur Christian Fellowship, Rajasthan Samagra Seva Sangh, Association for Protection of Civil Rights and several interfaith organizations representing Buddhist, Muslim and Dalit communities urged the governor to withhold assent and refer the bill to the president under Article 200 of the Constitution.
They argued that the bill violates Articles 14, 19, 21, and 25 of the Constitution and noted that governors blocked similar bills in 2006 and 2008 by withholding assent. The Rajasthan governor gave his assent on Oct. 3, and the state brought it into force on Oct. 29, making Rajasthan the 12th state with an anti-conversion law along with Odisha, Arunachal Pradesh, Gujarat, Chhattisgarh, Karnataka, Jharkhand, Haryana, Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh.
Christian support organization Open Doors ranks India 11th on its 2025 World Watch List of countries where Christians face the most severe persecution. India stood at 31st place in 2013 but has steadily fallen in the rankings since Narendra Modi came to power as prime minister.
Religious rights advocates blame the increasingly hostile rhetoric of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, which they say has emboldened Hindu extremists in India since Modi took power in May 2014.
