by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - Christians at Praise the Lord Church in Kanjapalli, a village in India’s persecution-ridden Tamil Nadu state, were ruthlessly attacked by a mob of Hindu radicals on May 3rd, following an identical instance of mob violence in February in which the church was told to close its doors.
Four members were left seriously injured after a mob armed with wooden sticks descended on pastor Philip Rangasamy’s church during a silent prayer and fasting service, proceeding to berate the believers for creating a public nuisance.
“It really pains me that I cannot practice the faith of my choosing in a free country like India,” Rangasamy told International Christian Concern.
Persecution watchdog groups and human rights activists have expressed heightened concern in recent days in the wake of Narendra Modi’s re-election to a five-year term last Thursday, a victory that afforded the Indian Prime Minister an even greater parliamentary majority than when his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) first came to power in 2014.
“If the BJP comes to power, Christians won't be treated as equal citizens because their aim is to establish a Hindu India," Dr. Paul R.T. Maran, Indian National Apostolic Diocese (INAD) head, told ICC shortly before Modi’s victory.
International Christian Concern (ICC), citing the Evangelical Fellowship of India, says that attacks on believers more than doubled in India in the years following the election of Modi and the BJP in 2014, with the number of violent incidents rising from 147 in 2014 to 325 in 2018.