NEW DELHI — A Christian charged under India’s anti-conversion law after Hindu nationalists attacked a church is seeking anticipatory bail from the Supreme Court of India.

Rajesh Sharma said his plea for anticipatory bail was rejected in Chhattisgarh state’s lower and high courts. Sharma and the others were booked after a mob of 70 to 100 hardline Hindus led by members of the Hindu nationalist Bajarang Dal cut the electrical power of the 120-member Church of God in Raipur and attacked them during their March 9 worship service.

“The mob was accompanied by few policemen, and they attacked in the presence of police who stood there as mere spectators, as they were very few in numbers,” said 66-year-old Senior Pastor Praveen Lawrence of the Church of God in Raipur.

The Hindu mob shouted slogans like “Jai Jai Shri Ram [Praise lord Rama],” “Stop conversions” and “Get rid of those carrying out conversions,” including derogatory words in Hindi not included in these translations.

Vandalizing cars and two-wheelers belonging to church members, the mob struck the vehicles with church chairs, broke surveillance cameras and then assaulted four Christians who sustained injuries, including two women, Pastor Lawrence said.

“They really tried very hard to break open the church door. They damaged the walls supporting the door attempting to get inside,” Vipin Lawrence, 38, junior pastor and son of Pastor Lawrence, told Morning Star News. “If they would have succeeded, many Christians would have been assaulted and wounded, besides the entire infrastructure inside the church that would have gotten damaged.”

The mob assaulted the Christians as some members of the congregation came out the church hall to speak to them. The Hindu men beat the Christian men and Hindu women attacked the Christian women.

“They hit us with chairs, long wooden sticks, fists, shoes and slippers,” said Vipin Lawrence, whose forehead was wounded.

The mob seized him while he was speaking to them and hit him with wooden sticks and fists, besides kicking him; one of them was wearing something on his hand that was sharp, Vipin Lawrence said.

“Someone hit me on the head with a wooden stick, and there was darkness before my eyes,” he said. “I did not know where I was standing. A church member pulled me out of the mob and the police took us inside the church to prevent further injuries.”

Abhishek Samson was assaulted and attacked with a sharp object; he was unsure if it was a knife or a sharp plastic object. He sustained a deep cut below his chest near a rib.

The mob beat a 45-year-old woman repeatedly with footwear. A 24-year-old young woman was manhandled and sustained a muscle pull after she was yanked by her arm, and the assault left her thumb bleeding.

“We don’t resort to violent means and did not retaliate,” said Pastor Lawrence. “The police were our witnesses, and the catastrophe took place in the presence of the police.”

He added that the mob was still attacking even after police reinforcements arrived. Eventually officers were able to rescue all church members, including many who had secured themselves inside the church hall.

The mob shattered car windshields, damaged a TV, camera, washbasin, water dispenser, faucets, pots, helmets, footwear that congregation members had removed before entering the hall and vandalized motorcycles and scooters with wooden sticks.

Officers escorted Vipin Lawrence and 50 church members through the frenzied mob to the local police station in a police van. Officers interrogating them also asked their addresses, names, religion and identification before releasing them at 8:30 p.m.

A large crowd of more than 100 Hindu extremists gathered outside the police station demanding arrests.

“As each Christian emerged, the mob would surround them, hurl insults at them and verbally abuse them,” said Vipin Lawrence. “We faced extensive harassment both from the Hindu extremists and from the police.”

Sharma, Abhishek Samson, Priyesh Kumar and Munna Guard, the watchman of the church premises, were named in First Information Report (FIR) No. 78, filed by Manish Verma in Amanaka police station in Raipur District on March 9. They were charged under the Bharatiya Nagarik Suraksha Sanhita (BNSS), which prohibits criminal intimidation, insulting religious beliefs, voluntarily causing hurt, obscene acts and defiling a place of worship, and under the Chhattisgarh Religious Freedom Act of 1968 prohibiting religious conversion by force or allurement.

“Rajesh Sharma is neither a member of our church, nor was he present in the church on the day of the attack, yet he has been named in the FIR,” said Vipin Lawrence.

The Christians planned to proceed with anticipatory bail applications one at a time, so that the other three will apply only after Sharma obtains a favorable court order, explained the junior pastor.

Sudden objection

The church had worshiped without incident or objection for 18 years after Pastor Lawrence constructed the church building in 2007, he said.

Tensions began after a colony meeting on Feb. 23, when Hindus proposed to build a temple in the common area near the church site. The church had converted a portion of its land into a play area for the children of the colony.

Representatives of the five to seven Christian households in the colony consented to the Hindu temple construction but suggested it should be built an appropriate distance from the church so that the worship sounds would not interfere with each other.

“We do not want the Christian functions like Christmas and weddings to cause any kind of disturbance to the Hindu neighborhood worshiping in the temple,” Pastor Lawrence told the community.

According to the senior pastor, another Christian at the meeting said, “It would hurt religious sentiments if a dog were to carry a chicken bone from the church premises and accidentally drop it near the temple. It could be perceived as Christians having eaten and purposely thrown the bone towards the temple, causing misunderstanding and disrupting the peace and harmony amongst the community.”

Some people at the meeting shared these comments with Hindu nationalists from outside the colony, who came and “misrepresented the words as, ‘The Christians will eat chicken and throw the bone towards the Hindu temple and defile the Hindu temple,’” Vipin Lawrence said.

In the weeks following the March 9 attack, residents constructed the Hindu temple in a common area that was intended for use by all the colony residents, Vipin Lawrence said.

On Good Friday, Hindus played loud Hindu worship songs during the church service, causing significant “disruption not only to the church service but to the entire colony residents as well,” he said.

On the same day the Christians were charged, Vipin Lawrence filed a counter- complaint at the Amanaka police station under FIR No. 79 against four identified attackers in addition to unidentified assailants.

No arrests have been made on either side based on the complaints.

A lower court denied Sharma’s anticipatory bail plea, and on April 9 the High Court rejected it.

“We plan to move to the Supreme Court this week,” Vipin Lawrence said on Tuesday (April 29). “Based on Rajesh’s bail, we will apply for the others in the lower court.”

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 point to the hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist BJP, which they say has emboldened Hindu extremists in India since Modi took power in May 2014.

This article was originally published at Morning Star News

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