NEW DELHI (Morning Star News) – 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.”
This story was originally published in christiannews.net. Read the full story here.