“While we were still having tea, a few men barged inside the house and, grabbing me by my shirt collar, they dragged me outside, accusing me of carrying out conversions,” Pastor Bhandari told Morning Star News. The Hindu extremists in Halaga village, near Belgaum city, Belgaum District also ignored the pleas of his wife’s family on the 5th of April. The men took Pastor Bhandari outside, where 50 to 60 Hindu extremists were waiting, he said.

The mob paraded him a mile to the rented worship hall where he has led Sunday services for five years, hitting and kicking him along the way, he said.

“They continued to hit me as they dragged me,” said Pastor Bhandari, a resident of Belgaum city. “They abused me and Jesus Christ in filthy language and pressured me to hail, ‘Jai Sri Ram [Hail lord Ram],’ as they beat me.”

The mob accused him of converting their community to Christianity and trying to convert the family he was visiting – though they are already Christian, he said.

“They hit me on my private parts, my face, chest and all over my body, accusing me of trying to convert my sister-in-law,” told Pastor Bhandari. “I tried telling them that the home belongs to my sister-in-law, and that they are already Christians and members of my church.”

The beating and slapping damaged one of his eardrums, he said, causing loss of hearing in that ear.

Shouting Hindu slogans, the mob accused the pastor of converting Santosh Satpute, formerly a Hindu. Satpute told the source that he went before the mob and told them he believed in Christ of his own free will, and that nobody had forced him to change his religion.

Satpute said the mob assaulted him as he tried to help Pastor Bhandari. The pastor’s wife was manhandled as she tried to shield her husband from the assault, he said. The 42-year-old Bhimshen Bhandari was also injured in the attack.

The mob began to perform Hindu rituals on Pastor Bhandari, he said. When he refused, they told him that if he persisted, then one of them would do it.

“They tortured Pastor Sanjay physically and mentally,” told Satpute. “He was forced to perform Hindu rituals against his free will. The harassment and torture he went through is beyond description.”

“They warned that they would chop me to pieces if I conduct church again,” Pastor Bhandari said. “Saying that, they dispersed and disappeared.”

Area Christian leaders strongly condemned the attack. “Initially churches and Christian gatherings were attacked – it is extremely shocking that now a personal visit to your own relative’s house is also objectionable, and you can face the brutality of the Hindu goons,” told Rev. T. Thomas, president of the Belgaum Karnataka Pastors Association.

Source: Morning Star News