A mob of about 30 people attacked a Christian family at their home in West Arjunda village, in West Bengal’s East Midnapore district, in the evening of Monday, October 26. Parvati Hembram Soren, 27, was praying with her husband and their two children when the crowd pushed in. She says it included relatives, neighbours and men who called themselves members of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), a Hindutva organisation. Hindutva is a Hindu nationalist movement. They snatched her Bible, locked her family in a room and beat her for nearly an hour until she lost consciousness.
It was around 7:30 pm, and the family was playing Christian songs on a small speaker. “They slapped, kicked and punched me,” Parvati told Alt News. Four relatives dragged her out of the house by her hair and tore her clothes. Her sister-in-law, a minor, was beaten too. Her husband, Santu, was abused but spared the blows because he was holding one of their children.
The mob then turned on the Bibles. The attackers tried to tear one up and set it on fire, then took all four from the house, destroyed them and threw them into a nearby pond. They snatched the sister-in-law’s phone as she filmed and deleted the footage. They also tried to break open the house of Santu’s elderly uncle next door.
Throughout, the attackers demanded that the family convert to Hinduism, threatening to kill them and to impose a social and economic boycott. BBC Bangla reported that they also vandalised the family’s prayer space and threatened to cut off electricity, water and welfare benefits.
The couple, along with Santu’s uncle and aunt, embraced Christianity more than a year ago and belong to Christ the King Mission Church, a Catholic congregation. Santu drives a toto, as electric rickshaws are known locally, and Parvati works on farmland.
During the attack, the family managed to reach a local volunteer of the Bangiya Christiya Pariseba (BCP), a Christian body, who alerted its legal team. Advocate Aditya Tewary phoned Parvati, but the attackers had allegedly snatched her phone, and a man answered. “I called Parvati, but a man answered the phone, who said he was from Vishva Hindu Parishad,” Tewary said. “He told me, ‘We are here to set things right. We have received information about Christian conversion here’.” The line went dead as soon as Tewary said he was an advocate.
Parvati underwent medical tests at 10:36 that night and has several injuries and severe pain. She then approached Panskura police with a written complaint naming extended relatives of the couple. Police said they would hold a preliminary inquiry before registering a First Information Report (FIR). The provisions cited, under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, India’s criminal code, include causing hurt, theft, house trespass, criminal intimidation and assaulting a woman with intent to disrobe her.
It was not the first time. On October 11, men calling themselves members of the Bajrang Dal, another Hindutva group, came to the house with her extended family and demanded that the family renounce Christianity. Parvati emailed a complaint the next day, naming relatives because she did not know the Bajrang Dal men. Police took no action, and no arrests have been reported despite the two complaints.
When the family tried to call the police on Monday, they were told the attackers would call the police themselves. The police did not reprimand the attackers, Parvati alleges, and instead told her family to practise their religion indoors and to stop using the speaker, which they described as an attempt to convert others. “Our Hindu neighbours keep playing religious songs on loudspeakers. We have never complained,” she said. “How can playing songs on a small bluetooth speaker convert others?” Panskura police told Alt News they were not authorised to brief the press. Senior district police officers did not answer calls.
The harassment has not stopped. Neighbours have allegedly forced the family to plant Tulsi, or holy basil, in the courtyard and perform Hindu rituals. Barriers are going up to keep the family from the pond’s water. On Wednesday, a loan agency’s representative came to process the couple’s application, as they cannot pay the remaining instalments on their toto. As he left, Parvati’s relatives surrounded him and urged him not to lend to people who were not Hindus. Parvati gave explicit consent to be named in this report.
The attack comes days after a similar one in Patlapur village, in Chandrakona area of Paschim Medinipur, or West Midnapore, district. On October 18, a mob of more than ten people, whom Lakshmi Mondal, 40, identified as Bajrang Dal members, dragged her out of her home, beat her and tried to strip her. The group then doused her with water in front of onlookers and declared her “purified”. The mob also beat two other women with bamboo sticks and an iron rod, and threatened to rape a teenage girl and burn the three families alive unless they gave up Christianity.
On October 19, two of the accused took members of the families to a Durga Puja pandal, a temporary shrine built for the Hindu festival, and made them offer flowers to the deity and eat the sacred food offered to it. The next morning, men led two of the husbands to an isolated spot and threatened to kill them unless they renounced Jesus Christ. Lakshmi filed a complaint at Chandrakona police station on October 20, and police registered a case against 13 people for offences including attempt to murder, house trespass and assault with intent to disrobe a woman. Police posted a guard outside the homes only after the complaint. No one has been arrested. The Mondals say an earlier complaint, filed last year after relatives harassed them over their faith, also brought no action. Congress leader KC Venugopal wrote to Union Home Minister Amit Shah and West Bengal Chief Minister Suvendu Adhikari on October 24, urging them to arrest all the accused.
The Patlapur families now have police protection. Parvati has asked for the same and has not received it.
Christian groups see the two attacks as part of a wider pattern. Alt News documented 35 incidents against Christians in West Bengal between July 1 and September 20, and the research group India Hate Lab recorded 60 across 13 districts between May 13 and September 20. Christians make up about 0.72 per cent of the state’s population, or 6.5 lakh people, according to the 2011 census.
