A group of around 50 Christians was attacked as they gathered for a Sunday church service in Bikaner, Rajasthan, India on 16 February.
CSW sources report that a mob of almost 200 people entered the church towards the end of the service and began to vandalise the premises and assault the Christians with iron rods, leaving three members of the church severely injured and the majority of others with bruises all over their body.
The pastor of the church, who wishes to remain anonymous due to security reasons, told CSW that a new member had attended the service that day and was seen sending messages minutes before the mob entered the church, at which point he ran out of the building.
Members of the mob reportedly also informed local police that forceful conversions were taking place at the church. According to the source, the mob dispersed the moment the police arrived at the scene. When the police questioned the victims, they accused them of forceful conversion and warned the pastor’s children that they should not turn out like their father.
The police subsequently escorted the pastor, his wife and few other Christians to the Mukta Prasad police station at the mob’s insistence. However, they were not charged with forceful conversion as the attackers (complainants) were not able to provide any evidence.
The Christians chose not to file a complaint out of fear of reprisals, and the police have not taken any action against the perpetrators of the attack.
On 4 February, the Rajasthan Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Bill 2025 was tabled in Rajasthan’s Legislative Assembly. If the bill becomes law, the burden of proof will shift to those accused of forceful conversion to prove their innocence. In 2024, the neighbouring state of Uttar Pradesh passed the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion (Amendment) Bill, which significantly altered its 2021 anti-conversion law to add more stringent provisions, increasing jail terms and fines.
According to the United Christian Forum (UCF), an Indian based monitoring group which runs a helpline, attacks against Christians rose from 127 incidents in 2014 to 834 in 2024.
CSW’s Founder President Mervyn Thomas said: ‘CSW is concerned by the rising numbers of reported attacks on Christians and other religious minorities in India. In recent years Christians have been increasingly subjected to assaults, humiliation and the loss of their livelihoods and belongings by far-right religious nationalists who make clearly baseless accusations of forceful conversion. Meanwhile those who carry out these attacks enjoy complete impunity. We urge the local authorities to be proactive and take firm and swift action against the perpetrators of such crimes.’