ICC Note:

Last Sunday, four men attacked a baptist church in India’s northern state of Haryana. According to reports, vandals attacked the church early Sunday morning, damaging the church’s cross and breaking the church’s windows. Local police were called to the scene and the vandals were chased away. This marks the second church attack in India in the last week. 

7/1/2015 India (Asia News) – On Sunday morning, four men stormed the Baptist church in Bhiwani District, in the northern Indian State of Haryana.

The four hooligans arrived on motorcycles around 5:30 am. Two of them threw stones at the building and then fled when they saw parishioners at the scene.

Some 30 minutes later, the attackers came back and threw stones a second time, damaging the church’s cross. Now, things appear to be back normal.

Deputy Police Inspector Ummed Singh corroborated the incident. The official said that no one was hurt, noting that police agents have been deployed around the church to avoid “any other possible incident during the week’s religious services.”

According to Rev Prakash Messey, the pastor of the church, the attack was “an attempt to provoke tensions in the community.”

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Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), firmly condemned “those who vandalized the cross in the Baptist church in Bhiwani”.

“This act deeply hurts our religious feelings. The cross is the symbol of the Christian faith,” the activist told Asia News. “This is not an isolated act by vandals; it is rather intentionally provocative and anti-Christian.”

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