On August 12, a group of unknown people set a small church on fire in Takkellapadu, Andhra Pradesh. The church made with thatch and wooden poles was completely destroyed leaving the community shattered.
Pastor Samuel, head pastor of Gethsemane Prardana Mandiram, owned the land on which the church was built a year ago. It was used by the community to host worship services.
Pastor Samuel told International Christian Concern (ICC) that he was so shocked to find the church totally burned. "It was the hard earned money of church members that were used to build the shed. All of the sudden, everything is gone," he said.
Recollecting the incident that occurred in May of this year, pastor Samuel strongly suspects that the burning of the church is the work of those Hindu radicals who attacked church members in the village when they were putting up posters about public Gospel meetings.
On July 22, Hindu radicals attacked an outreach team from Hebron Fellowship Church in Huzur Nagar, a town in Suryapet district. They forcibly applied bindis on the foreheads of the Christians. This happened in the presence of local police.
These incidents were reported to the local authorities but no actions have been taken for the justice of the Christian victims.
