KARNATAKA, India (BP) – A mob of 300 people beat and threatened to kill a Christian couple at a police station in Karnataka State, India, after the wife was falsely accused of forced conversion, Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW) said Jan. 23.
Beaten were Uppaladinni village residents Vijayalakshmi Chavhan and her husband Ashok. Police feigned an inability to stop the attack, sources told CSW.
“This is part of a growing trend of social hostility towards religious minorities across India which the authorities must address as a matter of utmost urgency,” CSW founding president Mervyn Thomas said. “CSW is concerned for the Christians in Uppaladinni who have been singled out, harassed and attacked on account of their beliefs.”
Religious conversions are criminalized in Karnataka and 11 other states in the majority Hindu country, punishable by yearslong prison sentences and monetary fines.
Spiking persecution of Christians in India has led the SBC’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission (ERLC) and other groups to urge the U.S. State Department to designate India a County of Particular Concern (CPC) for systematic, ongoing and egregious religious liberty violations.
The ERLC is deeply grieved to hear about the systematic mistreatment of our brothers and sisters in Christ in India. We continue to urge the Biden Administration to speak out against religious persecution in India and ask that India be named a Country of Particular Concern, along with Nigeria.
Palmer Williams, ERLC general counsel and senior policy advisor
Read the full Baptist Press article here.
