Three Christians were attacked on Sunday (17 July) by a mob of more than 50 suspected Hindu extremists in the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, reports UCAN.
Umesh Patel, a student, his father, Sudhama, and a family friend, Kiran Vishwakarma, were seriously injured after Umesh had been questioned about his Christian faith, UCAN reports.
The Patels’ house was also “trashed by the mob”, it says, while the three remain in a “serious condition” in hospital.
“We keep getting several reports of assaults on poor Christians living in villages every day from different parts of the country,” Tomson Thomas, who heads the India operations of Persecution Relief, told UCAN.
In the first four months of 2016, there were 49 reported incidents against Christians in Chhattisgarh, ruled by the Hindu nationalist party, the BJP. This included an assault on an Indian pastor and his pregnant wife, whose church was set on fire after they refused to praise a Hindu god.
In 2014 and 2015, 93 organised attacks on Christians were reported in Chhattisgarh.