Category: India

Christians in Kashmir, India Increasingly Fearful, Report Says

India A fact-finding mission to India’s Kashmir Valley found that Muslim leaders’ increasingly shrill opposition to conversions has instilled fear among the Christian minority, which has been threatened as Christmas nears.

Christians in Srinagar, the summer capital of India’s northern-most state of Jammu and Kashmir, are “really scared,” said Dr. John Dayal, a member of the National Integration Council and part of the fact-finding team.

Muslims helping to rebuild Christian school in Kashmir

India Muslims in Kashmir, in the northwest of the Indian subcontinent, are supporting the re-building of a Christian school that was destroyed by fire during anti-Christian violence one year ago.

On 13 September, 2010, the Tyndale Biscoe School was the target of Muslims protesting a reported desecration of the Quran in the U.S. that marked the ninth anniversary of the 11 September 2001 terror attacks.

India Girls Escaping anti-Christian Violence Face Sexual Abuse

India Girls escaping deadly anti-Christian violence in India’s volatile state of Orissa face sexual after human traffickers falsely promise them a better life, human rights investigators claim.

At least four girls have been trafficked to India’s metropolis Delhi where they were “sold” to a placement agency, according to advocacy groups All India Christian Council (AICC) and Human Rights Law Network’s Anti-Human Trafficking Initiatives.

Indian Supreme Court Defers Religious Site Verdict

India’s Supreme Court stepped in at the last minute to delay the issuance of a verdict that was to decide whether Hindus or Muslims had rights to a controversial religious site in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh.

The Indian government prepared extensively for the ruling on the Babri Masjid site, where a Hindu mob destroyed a mosque in 1992 sparking widespread rioting nationwide that left an estimated 2,000 people dead. Since then, the government deployed thousands of troops to the site, taken out ads in newspapers appealing for calm in the wake of the verdict, and officials asked the public to handle the verdict without knee jerk reactions.

Though there was a mosque on the site in 1992, many Hindus believe that the site is the birthplace of Lord Ram and that a temple once existed there.

India Braces for Court Verdict on Divisive Mosque Site

India is bracing for a historic verdict Friday on whether Hindus or Muslims have rights to a disputed religious site, in a test of whether the issue will stir passions as it did in 1992, when a mosque at the site was destroyed by a Hindu mob and an estimated 2,000 people died in rioting that followed.

Since then, the Babri Masjid, a mosque in the town of Ayodhya in the state of Uttar Pradesh, has come to represent the deep and violent divisions that occasionally erupt within India’s multifaith democracy.

India State Jails Evangelists, Police, For Converting Hindus

India Four Christians, including three evangelists and a police officer, have been jailed in India’s central state of Chhattisgarh for “converting” Hindus to Christianity, after they were injured in an attack by Hindu militants, Christian officials confirmed Saturday April 17.

In statements, Hindu militants defended their actions saying they were also attacked by Christians and suffering injuries.