On Saturday morning, as a group of Christians walked back from church in Kotamateru village of Odisha’s Malkangiri district, they were ambushed by a mob armed with axes and sticks.
Eight of them were seriously injured. All of them are now in hospital.
I spoke to Pallab Lima, state general secretary of the Rashtriya Christian Morcha. “They had been threatening us for months,” he said. “Accept Hinduism or face consequences. But these villagers were Christians by birth. They resisted. And this is what happened.”
According to Lima, the attackers were members of the Bajrang Dal. “One man managed to call a pastor, who rushed to inform the police,” he told me. “That’s what saved them.”
On Sunday, local Christians held a peaceful dharna outside the Malkangiri Superintendent of Police’s office. I was told that they handed over a memorandum demanding protection and accountability.
But the police downplayed the violence. Rigan Kinda, inspector at Malkangiri police station, told reporters: “This is a family feud between two brothers — one Christian, one Hindu. Others got involved when an argument broke out after Sunday prayers.”
Christian leaders, however, said this narrative is misleading.
“It was not a feud. It was a planned attack,” said Bijoy Pusuru, a local Christian leader. “Our people are now too afraid to go back to their homes.”
Bajrang Dal leader Sibapada Mirdha denied any involvement. But in the same breath, he added, “Hindus have been raising their voice against forced conversions. Sometimes, there is a spontaneous reaction.”
Earlier this month, Bajrang Dal activists forced a 29-year-old nun off a train and detained her for 18 hours on false charges of conversion.
As I left Kotamateru, I couldn’t stop thinking about what Bijoy had told me:
“They beat us because we said no.”
