ICC Note:

Hindu radicals in India’s Uttar Pradesh state reportedly kidnapped, tortured and left for dead a Christian convert as religious intolerance and religiously motivated violence continues to spread. Conversion from Hinduism to another religion considered foreign by radicals Hindu nationalists remains a tense subject in India. Often, Christian evangelists and converts in India are targeted by radicals who view their conversion as a crime against the country. Since the beginning of 2016, ICC has recorded over 90 attacks on Christians and their places of worship making 2016 one of the most violent years faced by Christians in India’s history. 

5/11/2016 India (Christian Post) – A Christian convert who refused to stop worshiping Jesus Christ was kidnapped, tortured and left for dead by a group of Hindu radicals in the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, a Christian persecution monitor has reported.

Hindu extremists in the area of Tewardih, Varanasi kidnapped the 30-year-old Christian convert named Joginder Gold after frequently demanding that he and his family stop worshiping Christ.

Gold told Morning Star News that the extremists kidnapped him around 11 a.m. on April 9 while he was on his way to the market to sell vegetables.

According to an area church leader named Rev. Patsy David who spoke with Morning Star News, the six Hindu radicals accused Gold of stealing vegetables from their farm house. Gold denied the accusation and said he could take the men to the seller who sold him the vegetables.

One of the Hindus told Gold that he would take him to the seller and told him to get on the back of his motorbike. Instead of taking Gold to the seller, the radical took Gold the Hindus’ farm house.

“They tied me upside down on a tree and started verbally abusing me for my faith in Christ and started to beat me on the soles of my feet,” Gold told Morning Star News.

Gold explained that he endured about three hours of beatings and torture. He added that one of the men stuck a stick in his mouth, while two other extremists held him down by sitting on his chest. He recalled throwing up at least three times before he lost consciousness.

David said that Hindu radicals have long harassed Gold and his family over their faith.

“For the past two years, they tried to implicate Joginder in a false case and told him to stop worshipping Christ or that he will pay for it,” David, a male clergy member, explained.

David added that the extremists must have thought Gold died because they threw him into a pit and covered his body with hay and leaves. Fortunately, a witness took Gold into his home and notified Gold’s family and the police.

“The man lay Joginder on a [traditional woven] bed and thereafter put the bed out on the road, and the villagers gathered up to see Joginder lying almost dead on the bed,” the male clergy member explained.

Gold was later taken to a public hospital by police.

“The injuries he suffered on the soles of his feet were so severe that they affected the veins in his head, and he suffered severe head pain along with severe pain in his chest, thigh, arm, buttock, upper back and left calf,” David told Morning Star News.

Although the police took Gold to the hospital, they initially took little action after a legal complaint was filed by a local Christian leader, according to David, who explained that police asked questions about the legality of Gold’s conversion to Christianity.

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