A Hindutva mob attacked a group of Protestant Christians in an Odisha village on Saturday for resisting alleged pressure to convert to Hinduism, leaving eight of them injured, Christian leaders said on Sunday.
The injured, attacked while returning from church at Kotamateru village in Malkangiri district, are being treated at the district hospital, police said.
Christian community leaders pointed a finger at the Bajrang Dal, whose targeting of Christians appears to have gone up in the past one year since the BJP came to power in Odisha.
The Bajrang Dal denied involvement. An FIR has been registered with Malkangiri police. Local Christians staged a peaceful dharna on Sunday in front of the office of the superintendent of police (SP).
"Tension had been building in the area for the last few months. Hindu Right-wing activists continued to threaten people to change their religion and accept Hinduism, but many of the people who are Christian by birth resisted," Pallab Lima, state general secretary of the Rashtriya Christian Morcha, said.
"On Saturday morning, while they were returning from prayers, hundreds of people armed with all kinds of weapons like axes, mostly belonging to the Bajrang Dal, attacked the Christian people. The attack went on for hours."
Lima said "one individual" was able to contact a district pastor, who immediately informed the Malkangiri police station. The police rescued the Christians and took the "critically injured" to hospital.
"Because of the remote location of Kotamateru, news of the attack was delayed. On Sunday, we submitted a memorandum to the SP," Lima said.
He claimed that local Hindutva outfits had launched a "Sanskriti Bachao Abhiyan" (Save Culture Campaign) to pressure Christians into converting to Hinduism.
Bijoy Pusuru, a Christian community leader, said: "All our people are in a state of shock. They (those in hospital) are afraid to return to their village (on discharge)."
The Malkangiri collector and SP visited the village on Sunday.
The police downplayed the violence, blaming it on sibling rivalry.
"The incident was triggered by a dispute between two brothers, one a Christian and the other a Hindu. The Hindu brother was pressuring his Christian sibling to return to the Hindu fold," inspector Rigan Kinda of Malkangiri police station said.
"While members of the Christian community were returning home after prayers at the village church, many Hindus surrounded them and questioned their allegiance to Christianity. An argument broke out and was followed by clashes, in which some people suffered injuries. We are investigating the matter."
District Bajrang Dal leader Sibapada Mirdha denied the accusations of violence or a campaign to convert Christians.
However, in the same breath, he said: "Hindus have been raising their voice against forcible conversions by Christians. Sometimes, there is a spontaneous reaction to this."
Earlier this month, a 29-year-old nun was forced off a train by Bajrang Dal activists and detained for 18 hours at a police station in Khurda on the charge of trafficking women and conducting illegal conversions. The allegations proved false.
