A Register of Atrocities Against Christians

From July 1, 1999 to June 30, 2000, violence against Christians was reported in Tamil Nadu, Goa, Punjab, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, and .

On January 22, 1999, and his two sons, Philip, 10, and Timothy, 7, were murdered in Manoharpur, the eastern state of Orissa, India. The three were sleeping inside their station wagon when it was drenched in gasoline and set ablaze by a mob of Hindu radicals. After they woke up, their efforts to escape the burning vehicle were stopped by their attackers. Staines worked with lepers in the area.

On September 2, 1999, a Roman Catholic priest, Father Arul Doss, 35, was killed in a night raid by Dara Singh-led Hindu groups on a church in Jambani village in Orissa's . Doss was pulled from the church, shot with arrows, and beaten to death by his assailants. The mob also severely beat Doss's associate and vandalized the one-room church, before setting it on fire.

On September 20, 1999, in Chapra, Bihar, two young men attacked a Roman Catholic nun; they reportedly questioned her about the number of conversions she and other nuns had made at the Jalalpur convent. The men reportedly stripped the nun, forced her to drink urine, and attempted to rape her.

Between September 30 and November 12, 1999, Tamil Nadu was the scene of multiple church burnings. During this 6-week period, nine thatched-roof buildings used for worship services by the Church of South India (a member of the Anglican Communion), the Syrian Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, the International Evangelist Church, and various Pentecostal denominations were burned down; no one was killed.

On November 11, 1999, a group of about 40 persons attacked a Christian gathering outside a church in the Khyala area of Delhi, in the first such incident in the capital. At least 12 persons were injured in the attack when the group attacked an open-air Bible reading session, allegedly tearing pamphlets and damaging two Bibles.

In November 1999, in Anekal, a small village in Karnataka, a group of Hindus attacked Selva Kumar, a Catholic seminary student, and stabbed him in the neck. The attackers accused him of trying to convert Dalits to Christianity.

On January 1, 2000, Father Vikas was attacked and beaten up at St. Mary's School in Panipat.

On January 3, 2000, a dozen Christian homes in Mankadaguda village were burned. On February 18, 2000, a Christian hospital was attacked and a statue of Mary desecrated in Nilakottai, in the Dindigul district of Tamil Nadu.

On February 18, 2000, Daiman Leprosy Hospital was attacke and suffered extensive damage. Catholic nuns have run the hospital for 31 years. Dindigul is about 2 km south of Nilakottai.

On February 20, 2000, the church at Sevti village in Uchhal Taluka was attacked.

On March 7, 2000, trespassers identifying themselves as part of the disturba prayer meeting by slapping members and taking copies of Bibles before leaving.

On March 9, 2000, the Ish Mata Catholic Church at Samalkha in Haryana is looted and the rear wall of the church demolished. Father Aseem Raj was forced to bolt himself in the bathroom to prevent being attacked.

On March 11, 2000, the front door of St. Mary's Church in Panipat is torn down by armed intruders used a concrete railway track sleep car. They also threatened nuns.

On March 12, 2000, a computer center run by Christians is attacked. Computers are taken and the priest and inmates are locked inside their rooms.

On March 12, 2000, sacred articles are ransacked in the S. B. College Chaplain Changanaserry near Kottayam. The Tabernacle was found abandoned in the nearby basketball court of the College.

On March 12, 2000, 20 men attacked the Saint Anne's convent and Sandhya Ashram, a elderly home. The attackers asked the sisters to leave the area and too cash and a camera.

On March 31, 2000, Father Skylark George and 8 students housed in Christ Vihar, Hindi Medium School, were threatened, robbed, and roughed up by 10 men armed with sticks, knives, and iron rods.

There was a series of incidents in Uttar Pradesh in April 2000 including:

On April 6, 2000, an angry group, demanding a decrease in school fees and an increase in the number of passing students, harassed the principal of Sacred Heart School in Mathura. The principal disputed an allegation that the harassment was because of school fees, saying she was harassed and chased by a group of young men (who were not parents of students) and who also asked her questions about what religious texts were read at the school.

On April 10, 2000, Father Joseph Dabre, Principal of St. Dominic's School in Mathura, was beaten by six young men who went to the school on the pretext of a question about admissions.

On April 11, 2000, in Kosi Kalan near Mathura, 8 to 10 assailants attacked Father K. K. Thomas at St. Theresa's school when he rushed to the assistance of their servant, Mary Murmo, and Sisters Gloria and Mary, whom the assailants were attacking with sticks. The culprits also stole equipment and cash. Thomas was beaten unconscious and left for dead by his attackers, who were not found.

On April 7, 2000, Shakir Hussein, the watchman of the Holy Cross convent in Belatanr, Giridih district, was shot by unidentified gunmen. On April 16, 2000, St. John's Convent Hostel near Bijnor is attacked by 15 men carrying firearms and sharp-edged weapons. The men tried to enter the convent where 10 nuns were sleeping.

On April 22, 2000, a group of Christians from Hyderabad was attacked by 20-30 Bajrang Dal activists. Their Bibles were burnt and their van set on fire in Jagdishpur on the outskirts of Agra.

On April 22, 2000, three nuns, Sisters Anadi, Pramila, and Gertrude of Deepti Ashram, said that they were deliberately run down by a motor scooter in the northern Indian state of Haryana on their way to a midnight Easter Mass. Sister Anandi was seriously injured and admitted into intensive care at the Holy Family Hospital, Delhi. The United Christian Forum for Human Rights stated that the attack was the fifth on nuns and priests in Haryana in the year.

On April 26, 2000, three Christian pastors were attacked at Kaduvakulam near Kottayam in Kerala by 6 assailants. A tent put up for their convention was razed to the ground and the loud speakers, generator, and chairs were destroyed by the assailants before leaving.

On May 2, 2000, 6 unidentified masked men assaulted and beat up nuns and looted their convent in Jhansi. The residential sacred chapel was desecrated and money and valuables were taken.

On May 3, 2000, a group of Christians was beaten up while engaging in a sound and lights program at Subir. This was the same place that 2 years prior Bajrang Dal activists had attacked and burnt prayer halls, churches, houses, and vehicles.

On May 5, 2000, six Christians who were distributing Bibles and other literature in Vivekanandnagar, Ahmedabad, were severely beaten. Some Christians and some Bajrang Dal activists came to blows when the Bajrang Dal activists forbade distribution of Christian literature.

On May 5, 2000, the Catholic management school at Ara in Bihar was attacked by a group of anti-Christian men. The school building was damaged, doors and windows were borken, the statue of Mary was broken, and effigies of Christians were burned.

On May 9, 2000, in Maharashtra, approximately 150 suspected activists of the Bajrang Dal and the VHP attacked the 45th annual convention of the Evangelical Alliance Christian Church and the Nashik District Church Council, set fire to three vehicles, and ransacked a bus carrying religious literature. Four persons were hospitalized.

On May 11, 2000, a Jesuit scholastic is stabbed by suspected fundamentalists at Basavanpura village, 30 kms from Bangalore.

On May 12, 2000 in Indore, Madhya Pradesh, people threw stones and tried to set fire to one church, while vandalizing two others.

On May 12, 2000, a hut used as a prayer cottage by Christians in Katiguda village was burned by what the local police referred to as "anti-socials."

On May 16, 2000, a cottage in Dharakote village used as a meeting place for local Christians was set on fire.

On May 16, 2000, Father Antholysamy, 50, was attacked at Bhind.

On May 21, 2000, Christian homes were torched in Katiguda village in Kandhmal district, Orissa. On May 22, 2000, 30 people were injured when a powerful bomb exploded during a Christian meeting at Machlipatnam in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh.

On May 28, 2000, explosive devices are found and defused in a church in Vikarabad.

On June 7, 2000, a Catholic priest, Brother George Kuzhikandam, 35, was murdered in Mathura, India. His killers beat him to death while he was sleeping at Pulus Memorial School, where he worked.

On June 8, 2000, bombs exploded in four churches in Andrha Pradesh, Karnataka, and Goa. The blasts occurred in a Baptist church in Ongole, Andrha Pradesh; a Catholic church in Tadepalligudem, Andrha Pradesh; a Catholic church in Wadi, Karnataka; and a church in Vasco, Goa. The bombs reportedly blew out windows and damaged pews; three persons in Ongole and two in Wadi received minor injuries.

On June 10, 2000, the only witness to Brother Kuzhikandam's death (see above), Vijay Ekka, 28, died while in police custody at the station. He was a Christian from the state of Madhya Pradesh who also stayed in the school and served as the priest's cook. The police, who had taken Ekka in for questioning, report his death as a suicide. However, Archbishop Vincent Concessao of Agra said that Ekka's body showed signs of torture, and believes that the police are responsible for his death. Two police officers were suspended and a probe by magistrates was ordered.

On June 11, 2000, a young preacher, Ashiah Prabash, 23, was brutally murdered in northern Punjab state. He worked for Campus Crusade showing documentaries and films. He had been stabbed to death and his body was found, by construction workers, after they noticed smoke and went inside his house. His body had been partially burnt.

On June 28, 2000 a church was ransacked in Maharashtra in the Vidharabha area.

On July 4, 2000, a group of unidentified persons entered the Colvin Vidya Niketan Missionary School and severely beat up the security guard.

On July 12, 2000, Father Remiz Karketta, 46, was gunned down while riding his motorcycle on the road that leads from Bundu to Ranchi. His killers then ran over his body with their car to make the crime appear as a straightforward traffic accident.

On July 25, a Catholic priest, Father Victor Crasta, was reportedly shot dead by militants in the northeastern state of Tripura.

On September 12, Christian preacher Yesu Dasu, 52, was beheaded in the southern village of Mustabad in Karimnagar. The unidentified assailants reportedly tied Dasu's hands and struck his neck several times with an axe severing his head.

Indian Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee asked for a detailed report on the incidents in the Mathura area from Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Ram Prakash Gupta. State officials also ordered police to keep watch over churches, missionary centers, and other places of worship after the attacks near Mathura. On April 26, 2000, the NCM visited the sites of these attacks at Sacred Heart School, St. Dominic's School, and St. Theresa's School, and issued a report on April 27, 2000. The report, which claimed that the Sacred Heart case had "no communal tinge," and that the Kosi Kalan case was a "case of robbery and nothing else," was widely criticized by the minority community. The validity of the report was also questioned openly by several members of the Lok Sabha (Lower House of Parliament), and victims of the attacks claimed that they were misquoted in the report. These attacks on Christians in Uttar Pradesh were the first in the state in 6 years.