On 1 December, tribal animists in eastern India surrounded a church building with axes, threatened to kill the Christians inside and later burned down the thatched-roof structure.
The attack by hardline animists in Perigaon village followed raids on Christians’ homes five days earlier to seize and burn Bibles. The police had not been called as the area has no mobile phone coverage.
The assailants surrounded Pastor Bibudhan Pradhan and his wife as they were trying to return to their home in another town.
‘They took us inside the village and held us hostage for more than four hours,’ Pastor Pradhan said.
The assailants released the couple with an ultimatum to stop worship services and never again enter the village.
Village elders ignored Pastor Pradhan’s complaints, saying his presence and Christian prayers ‘had hurt them deeply’.
‘They also issued threats that they would go to any extent to put an end to the spread of Christianity in the village.’
The police did not take Pastor Pradhan’s complaints seriously. A police inspector summoned Christians several times forcing them to sign a document prohibiting them from worship in the village.
Police eventually registered a complaint. Saravana Vivek, the Rayagada District Superintendent of Police, said that police were looking into the matter ‘very closely and seriously’.
Vivek said villagers were angry that a Hindu priest who had been granted land for Hindu worship had converted to Christianity, resulting in the rituals having ceased for the past four years.
The officer said the former Hindu priest had built a Christian house of worship on the land, and that he must renounce all rights to the land.
Pastor Pradhan said the convert had actually been a priest of tribal Adivasi religion and that the land had been the site of an Adivasi temple. The former animist priest is now a church elder.
In the face of the threats, church members have decided not to pursue legal action.
