Months after Hindu extremists and police attacked a revival meeting in northern India and shut down a church, one pastor is in hiding and officers prohibit another from praying with members of the scattered congregation in their homes, it was reported in late January.
Members of the once-thriving church, where evangelistic events used to draw crowds of 5,000 people, either travel long distances to worship or are meeting secretly in homes.
Accused of witchcraft
Hindu extremists attacked the evangelistic meeting at the church site in Sitaram Purwa, Sitapur District, in September accusing Pastor Rameshwar Mishra of ‘witchcraft’ for serving Communion bread and wine.
Days before the event, when the pastor informed police of court permission to stage it, police officers told him to cancel the meeting and began disparaging him in coarse language for leaving Hinduism, he said. Pastor Mishra, who became a Christian in 2009 and helped found the church four years ago, said that the officer-in-charge became so angry that he jailed him. After obtaining the church leader’s personal, church and baptism documents, the officer let him go, but warned him not to evangelise, he said. The pastor said that God told him to proceed with the event, which drew 3,500 people. ‘The police patrolled on that Saturday, warning the villagers not to attend the meeting’, he said.
As a worship leader sang, an hour into the scheduled five-hour event, a Hindu extremist identified only as Babblu was already present with 15 to 20 cohorts, and some of them took the singer aside and began to assault him, rupturing his eardrum, the pastor said. Some of the assailants also caught hold of the singer’s sister and struck her, to a lesser degree, before Pastor Mishra arrived.
Four police officers arrived and joined the Hindu extremists, kicking and hitting Pastor Mishra, whose clothes were torn in the assault, he said. The officer-in-charge at the police station arrived soon after, followed by a bus full of policemen called in to disperse the crowd.
Threatened and disparaged
Police took Pastor Mishra to the Reusa police station, where officers further disparaged him. The officer-in-charge threatened to keep him in custody for two weeks and to beat him until he worshipped Hindu gods and goddesses, the pastor said.
Pastor Mishra replied that he would not leave Christ even if the officer killed him. With serious internal injuries, Pastor Mishra was freed a few days later. He filed a counter case against Babblu and 15 police officers, including the station officer-in-charge, for brutality. Having spent about 12,000 rupees (US$175) in payments to an attorney to file it, he is upset that no hearing has taken place and there has been no movement on the case.
Pressure to settle
Meantime, Reusa police repeatedly approached a church co-pastor who goes by the single name of Mahesh and told him to persuade Pastor Mishra to settle out of court with the attacking officers. When he was unable to persuade him to settle out of court, the police officers filed a false case against Pastor Mahesh of hooliganism under the ‘Goonda Act,’ (after the term for a hired thug or ‘goon’), Pastor Mishra said. Mahesh immediately obtained bail and was not arrested. For a week Pastor Mishra continued to visit people in their houses to pray with them, but patrolling police announced daily that ‘anybody found praying inside their houses would not be spared’, he said. Not wanting to endanger members of the congregation, Pastor Mishra fled to a different village. Pastor Mahesh and his wife have not left the area, but they can only minister to people 40 to 150 kilometres (24 to 93 miles) away.
