A mob of 150 Hindu nationalists brutally attacked Pastor Bipin Bihari Naik (35) and paraded him through Parjang village in Odisha state’s Dhenkanal district. They garlanded him with footwear and made him walk on thorns before tying him up at a Hindu temple, forcing him to chant Hindu slogans and trying to make him drink water mixed with cow dung.
Pastor Naik, whose hearing was damaged in one ear, said he was certain he would be killed. He told Morning Star News, “When my ordeal was unstoppable and police showed no intention of rescuing me, I surrendered my spirit to Jesus, knowing they would kill me.”
Pastor Naik has led a house church in Parjang village for nearly two years, after moving there eight years ago. After the attack members of the mob said they were upset that the pastor was converting Hindus to Christianity, although he later stated that he only discipled those who believed in Jesus and did not force anybody.
The attack took place on 4 January, when around forty villagers led by members of the Bajarang Dal (a militant Hindutva organisation that is the youth wing of the Hindu nationalist organisation Vishwa Hindu Parishad) barged into a worship service accompanied by a group of vigilante cow protectors (Gau Rakshaks).
“They came inside, took me by my collar and dragged me out and immediately started to beat me,” Pastor Naik said. He tried to take his phone out of his pocket to give to his wife Bandana Naik so she could call police, but one of the attackers hit him on the leg with a bamboo rod and smashed the phone in his pocket.
His wife and daughters, aged 13 and 10, witnessed the mob surrounding Pastor Naik and attacking him. Bandana told Morning Star News, “When I saw that the attackers were not ready to talk the matter out and were determined to hit my husband without reason, I took my children and escaped from a back door. I ran straight to the nearest police station.”
Two men from the congregation tried to intervene and were also assaulted, but the pastor signalled to the rest of the congregation to flee and the seven families including children escaped. Meanwhile, Bandana pleaded with police to rescue her husband, but officers told her that the police vehicle was out on patrol and they would have to wait for it to return.
The mob dragged Pastor Naik to the village centre and announced that he had been “involved in converting all the innocent villagers to Christianity”. They took him to a nearby temple dedicated to Hanuman, tied his hands behind his back to a pole and repeatedly slapped him and kicked him in the back. He reported that a journalist verbally abused him and incited the mob to keep hitting him. The slapping caused his face to swell and repeatedly being kicked over made his hands bleed from the ligatures.
“They hit me with forty lashes with the bamboo sticks, and my hearing got impacted because of the several hundred slaps,” said Pastor Naik. “Someone from the mob got water mixed with cow dung and tried to force me to drink it, but I tightened my lips and did not let it enter my mouth.”
The attackers then untied him, smeared his face with saffron and forced him to bow before an effigy of Hanuman. They demanded that he chant the Hindu slogan, “Jai Shri Ram [Hail lord Ram],” but Pastor Naik said, “Jai Yeshu [Hail Jesus],” and they hit him again. They then made a garland out of slippers, put it around his neck and paraded him throughout the village barefoot.
Describing his ordeal, Pastor Naik said: “One of them said, ‘Jesus was made to walk on thorns, so let us treat him the same way,’ and they went and fetched branches of the bush that had sharp long thorns and spread them on the road and forced me to walk on them.”
The attackers marched the pastor down the road, even passing the police station where his wife was waiting, and after going around the entire village, the mob brought him back and tied him up again in the temple.
Rescue delayed
Bandana said, “I waited for the rescue for two-and-a-half hours in the police station while my husband suffered the horrendous attack.” She was eventually taken out in a police vehicle and they found the pastor tied to the pole at the temple. Police took him into protective custody and reportedly told him, “We thought that the mob by now must have broken your hands and legs. We were expecting to carry you on a stretcher by now, but you look okay to us.”
Pastor Naik said officers made him write a statement that “the mob misunderstood my activities and mistook me for a person carrying out illegal conversions in the village and thus attacked me” and added that police threatened to file a case against him and put him in jail if he refused to comply.
A Christian leader who arrived to help found the pastor with his face swollen and smeared with saffron, barefoot and with both his hands bleeding. The leader said, on condition of anonymity, “He could not wipe his face or close his shirt buttons, as his hands were full of blood and he was in much pain. Police cared nothing and did not give him first aid, nor a glass of water to drink.”
The Christian leader reported that when he asked police the reason for the delay in rescuing Pastor Naik a police officer said, “We are only four policemen, and they were a huge mob; how could we rescue him? Besides, Naik is involved in conversion, and how can you expect us to protect him?”
Christian leaders drove the pastor and his family 26 km from the village to his brother’s house and after he had washed they drove him to hospital with severe pain in his back and legs. A doctor injected him with painkillers, dressed his wounds and prescribed antibiotics for them, but only later did Pastor Naik realise that his hearing had been impacted and his ear was discharging pus.
Christian leaders register complaint
On 12 January around thirty Christian leaders submitted an application at the office of the Superintendent of Police to register a formal complaint. The application was forwarded to Parjang police station and a First Information Report (FIR) was registered on 13 January against members of the mob for “causing hurt,” “wrongful restraint,” “unlawful assembly,” “rioting,” “being armed with a deadly weapon” and “criminal intimidation”.
International Christian Concern reports that police have detained nine people in connection with the attack, but said a counter-FIR has also been filed against the pastor, accusing him of forced conversion.
The pastor and his family have moved to an undisclosed location 70 km from the village and plan never to return; the attackers threatened his landlord with dire consequences if he allowed the family back. Pastor Naik told Morning Star News, “It has been a difficult decision for us as a family to leave our home there, but we are sad that the villagers conspired and police were hand-in-glove with them, thus the decision.”
He added, “Both my daughters saw them beat me. They were traumatised and could not sleep for four nights and did not eat food for three days. My youngest kept saying that ‘they hit my papa’.”
The pastor stated that he previously faced aggression three times, though not as severe as the recent attack, and said he was grateful to God for saving him. He added, “Jesus bore so much suffering for us; my suffering is nothing compared to my Lord’s suffering.”
The other Christian families from the village have reportedly been relocated to safe houses.
(Morning Star News, International Christian Concern)
Photo: Morning Star News