Hindu radicals harassed 35 Christians in Basuguda, Chhattisgarh for distributing New Testaments and Gospel tracts in the village marketplace on October 11.
Though the Christians had obtained prior permission to do the outreach work, the radicals shouted at them with abusive language and behaved ruthlessly. They seized the literature, harassed the believers and handed them over to the local police.
The local authorities told the Christians not to continue to distribute Bible literature in public places.
Pastor Joseph from the Hebron Assembly told International Christian Concern that "Even though we had permission to do outreach in seven villages, we had to wind up the work after second village. The police told us that we could not continue. It is sad that the police followed the instruction of the radicals. They were supposed to give us protection and allow us to continue our peaceful work of distribution."
According to Alliance Defending Freedom's recent report, Christians in the country have already suffered 218 incidents of violence in 2019 alone. With local authorities often siding with the perpetrators of violence, the severity and number of attacks on religious minorities only seems to escalate in the future.
