ICC Note:
A Christian couple was forced to stand in a cold pond overnight after they refused to denounce their Christian faith. As a result, one of the Christians fell ill and died. These Christians converted a decade ago and have faced intense persecution from local villages for the past couple of years. The persecution previously faced by the Christian family included being socially boycotted and forced to participate in local Hindu rituals. Attacks on Christians and their places of worship in India continues to escalate. When will the government step in and start enforcing the religious freedom rights all Indian citizens are supposed to enjoy? 
02/14/2017 India (Catholic Online) – In the small village of Kubuaa, India, Bartu Urawn and his wife were told to deny Christ and return to their indigenous religion.
When the Urawns refused, they were forced to spend a cold winter night in a freezing pond from 5 p.m. to 10 a.m. with groups of villagers watching to ensure the couple didn’t leave the frigid water.
The couple’s son, Beneswar Urawn, told the Global Christian News: “All throughout the night, they were in the cold water shivering, and I along with 15-20 villagers were witness to the brutality.
“The villagers kept asking my father if he is ready to forsake Christ and return to the Sarna fold. He reiterated every time, “I will not deny Christ…I will continue to believe till my last breath.”
The Urawns gave their lives to God a decade ago but when the villagers realized it wasn’t a phase, they began ostracizing, threatening and assaulting the family.
The couple had suffered several abuses from their fellow villagers for three years before they were forced to stand in the pond up to their necks.
They were told to return to the “Religion of the Holy Woods,” which requires blood sacrifices to their most powerful god and other, smaller, ritual services to lesser gods.
Villagers once sacrificed an animal, which they forced down Urawn’s throat and forced him to drink fermented liquor.
Other times, the village assaulted Urawn and his wife while a mob attacked Beneswar, his wife and his younger brother. They were locked in their own home for hours and the source of the family’s drinking water was polluted.
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