“Linking this gruesome incident to the church looks like a deliberate attempt to malign the Christian community and can increase attacks on Christians not just in Palghar district but also elsewhere,” Vijayesh Lal, general secretary of the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), told Morning Star News.

“Rumors spread through social media, and vicious attacks by cow vigilantes have resulted in several incidents of lynching throughout India in the recent years, and we condemn each and every one of them. The Christian community has lost at least four of our own to these senseless killings; the Muslim community has lost many more.”

Hindu nationalist Twitter accounts alleged that social activists with Christian and communist links were trying to bail out those arrested. The Logical Indian website fact-checked the claim and found it false.

Again Maharashtra Home Minister Anil Deshmukh took to Twitter to quell rumors. In an attempt to show that the killings were not sectarian, he released a list of names of those arrested to show that attackers and victims were from the same religious background.

Hindu nationalists continued to blame Christians.

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