by Jordan Hilger, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) - A pastor in India and his family were held hostage for several hours by Hindu radicals who accused him of carrying out forced conversions and defacing Hindu idols, police blaming and arresting the pastor afterwards.
House church pastor Sanjay Raj Singh of Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh explained that 15 members of the Hindu right-wing organization the Bajrang Dal burst into his home on February 9 and started filming broken idols they themselves had smashed on his floor upon entering.
“They started to film the broken idols that they dropped as evidence that I had destroyed the idols,” Singh related to International Christian Concern. “The angry mob came prepared to accuse me of destroying the Hindu idols. That is the reason they brought these idols and dropped them where the worship was going on.”
Singh said that when police arrived, he and his family were promptly arrested by police when the Hindus cried foul and claimed his car was used for forced conversion activities, the believers later undergoing an all-night interrogation at the police station.
“Most of the officers in the government favor the attackers because of the pro-Hindu BJP Government being in control of the state," Singh said. "Due to this reason, there has been an increase in attacks against Christians and in most cases the Christians silently suffer with no one coming to their aid.”
India has risen to number 10 on Open Doors USA's World Watch List for two straight years, as the once tolerant country becomes a bastion for Hindu nationalism under Prime Minister Narendra Modi.