Ranchi: As many as 16 Dalit Christians had to flee their homes after refusing to worship Hindu gods in Jharkhand state, eastern India
Christian leaders view the incident as part of an orchestrated strategy to defame, discredit and terrorize Christians and discourage people from joining Christianity.
“We have been thrashed brutally with lathis (sticks), kicked and punched all over the body when we turned down to their order to worship Hindu Gods,”Naresh Bhuiya, a Christian told Matters India.
Narrating the ordeal, the 25-year-old said April 11, “we have been following Christianity since nine years. Until now, there has been no problem from any quarter.on May 8 the villagers summoned us before a gathering and questioned us why we are worshipping Lord Jesus Christ.”
He also said that the villagers also found fault with them being Christians and asked them to loudly recite ‘Jai Sriram.”
When they refused, the villagers tried to threatened to kill them. “Still we did not succumb, and they tied our legs and hands and beat us,” Bhuiya narrated.
He said his body has bruises. “They, however, did not assault the women and children, except those tried to intervene and plead for the safety of their men,” he added.
One child who held the leg of an assailant to plead for mercy, was thrown away, Ram said with a chocked voice.
The alleged incident took place at Hunter, a villager under Ramgarh police station, in the forested district of Palamu, which is also a Naxal-infested where people live in constant fear of the outlaws.
When contacted the police Inspector in-charge of the police station D K Singh confirmed about the clash between the villagers. He, however, said there was no communal angle in it.
“The villagers had a fight over a donation related issue,” he told Matters India. “Some of them had come to the police station and we along with the consent of other villagers had patched up between both the parties.”
The people in the area, according to the police official, are poor and have hardly enough to eat. “Under such circumstances no one will be in a position to fight any legal case and therefore, whenever any complaint comes usually we try to settle it out between the parties through dialogue and we have done the same in this case too,” he adds.
When told about the violent attack, the officer told Matters India, ‘I am not aware of it so far and it will be investigated.”
According to another official who did not want to be identified told Matters India that both the parties involved in the fight are not only from the same village but some of them are relatives. Those claiming to be Christians refused to donate for a traditional function, which led to clashes between them.
The nearest town, the official said was 40 kilometer away. “The villagers are so poor that they hardly find one proper meal a day and how can they think of going for legal fight?” he asked.
“We are all living here under constant fear,” says the officer. “We have no guarantee we will return on after leaving it as any time they can become target of the Maoist who call the shot there, with hardly no room for the government machinery to have an upper hand.”
“People do not even go out after the sun set,” he says explaining the local situation.
“We have given accommodation to all of them,” says Pastor Vijay Das. “They reached my place in a very pitiable condition on Monday,” he told Matters India.
The pastor is based at district headquarters Daltonganj. “We have given them food, medicine and all other basic needs but still they are under the trauma of the violence unleashed on them,” he adds.
The Protestant pastor claimed that they have been following Christianity since nine years. He termed the attack as the outcome of the ongoing violence against the minority community.
“We have witnessed three attacks against Christians including murder of a priest in this month alone in Jharkhand,” laments Thomson Thomas, the national coordinator of the Persecution Relief.
“We are witnessing a sudden rise in attacks against Christians in the state, especially after the pro Hindu Bharaitiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power both in the Centre and the state.”
“The Christian missionaries,” he told Matters India, “work with dedication to the poor and the untouchables living in remotest forest where no government agencies go and that automatically brought a change in their lives.”
“Now the right wing Hindu groups are trying to project them as a facade to conversion.”
Such an approach, he warns, will not serve any purpose other than pushing the poor and other weaker sections further backward.
He also urged the government to protect the life and properties of the Christians and initiate action against those who are indulging in spreading communal hatred.