Pastor and spouse are longtime Christians, attend Episcopal Methodist Church
NEW DELHI — A Christian girl in central India suffered a miscarriage this month after tribal kin who observe conventional faith beat and strangled her, sources mentioned.
Kunika Kashyap was greater than six weeks pregnant when she was admitted to Authorities District Hospital-Maharani in Jagdalpur, Bastar District, Chhattisgarh state in severe situation on Jan. 2. Tribal village headman Ganga Ram Kashyap, his spouse and grownup daughter had assaulted her that day after the headman started video recording her in hopes that he may catch her praying for a typical relative — additionally a Christian — as proof of some perceived crime, mentioned her husband, Mandu Ram Kashyap.
The 25-year-old Kunika Kashyap, of Bade Bodal village, had gone to go to her cousin’s sister, a Christian who was in poor health, about 150 meters from her house. Tribal headman Ganga Ram Kashyap, brother-in-law of the sick girl and a cousin of Kunika Kashyap’s husband, noticed her getting into the home.
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Whereas Kunika Kashyap was sitting at her bedside, Ganga Ram Kashyap started recording her on his cell phone, mentioned Salim Hakku, a Christian chief from Jagdalpur.
“He suspected that Kunika may pray together with her sick relative and needed to seize it as proof on his mobile phone,” Hakku informed Morning Star Information.
Kunika Kashyap objected, however Ganga Ram Kashyap refused to cease, she mentioned.
“When he continued filming even after my protests, I swatted his hand away,” Kunika Kashyap informed Morning Star Information from her hospital mattress.
She mentioned Ganga Ram Kashyap instantly started to assault her. His spouse and daughter rushed out of their home on the commotion and joined within the assault, Kunika Kashyap mentioned.
“Ganga Ram kicked my stomach together with his foot, strangled me and hit me violently,” she informed Morning Star Information. “His spouse and daughter joined him in beating me with a thick wood bamboo, kicked my chest, my abdomen, my head and my complete physique brutally.”
Kunika Kashyap managed to flee, mentioned her husband.
“It was solely God’s doing that enabled her to flee from three folks constantly beating her from all sides,” mentioned her husband, who works as a mason and every day wage laborer in Jagdalpur, 16 miles from their village.
Kunika Kashyap was in extreme ache when her husband rushed her to the federal government hospital in Jagdalpur, the place remedy started at round 5 p.m., he mentioned.
Medical information state that she was admitted with “neck ache, ache over proper leg, ache over temporo-occipital and swelling, stomach ache and chest ache, contusion over neck area,” and that she was six weeks and 6 days pregnant.
“The preliminary ultrasound confirmed that the fetus was alive,” mentioned her husband, “however by 6:30 within the night she suffered a miscarriage.”
The couple has been married for 2 years, and this was her first being pregnant, he mentioned.
Discharged from the hospital on Jan. 6, Kunika Kashyap was nonetheless present process remedy at this writing.
Her husband, who, together with church elders approached the native police station and filed a written grievance in opposition to Ganga Ram Kashyap on Jan. 2, mentioned he suspects officers haven’t registered a First Info Report (FIR), as he has acquired no copy of 1.
“Although the police mentioned they might register a FIR after the preliminary investigation, the police by no means known as us for any inquiry, nor recorded my spouse’s assertion,” Mandu Ram Kashyap mentioned.
The police visited him and his spouse solely as soon as, on Jan. 7, and requested them in regards to the exact space of the home the place the assault had taken place, which they confirmed them, he mentioned.
Mandu Ram Kashyap and his spouse are certainly one of 50 Christian households within the village of about 120 households. Kids of Christian mother and father, every has been Christian for greater than 20 years and attend the Episcopal Methodist Church.
Different incidents
Different Christians within the village have been focused, mentioned Mandu Ram Kashyap.
“We’ve got been dealing with sturdy opposition for the previous few years from the tribal village headman and the villagers,” he mentioned.
Christians usually are not allowed to attract water from the identical website as different villagers, he mentioned, “nor are we allowed to bury our useless in our non-public property,” he added.
When Budai Kashyap, a 90-year-old Christian girl, died on Dec. 29, 2024, the Christian neighborhood buried her on non-public land they’d bought. Headman Ganga Ram Kashyap reached the burial website and requested if they’d permission for the burial. The confrontation escalated and changed into a bodily altercation between the Christians, the headman, and his males, Manu Ram Kashyap mentioned.
On Jan. 7, the son of Pastor Subhash Baghel wasn’t allowed to bury his father in Chhindawada village despite the fact that a bit of the hamlet has been designated for Christians, Hakku mentioned.
“Despite the fact that his aunt and grandfather have been beforehand buried in that graveyard, the villagers and the headman refused to let him bury his father,” he mentioned.
The pastor’s son filed a petition within the Chhattisgarh Excessive Courtroom asking permission to bury his father within the village graveyard, which the court docket rejected on Jan. 12. Whereas his father’s physique awaits burial within the Jagdalpur mortuary, he’s interesting to the Supreme Courtroom.
Hakku mentioned Christians have been shocked that authorities supported a shutdown in protest of alleged compelled conversion and the Christian neighborhood’s strife with headman Ganga Ram Kashyap. The protest was organized by the Sarva Adivasi Samaj (All Tribal Society) in Bastar District for Jan. 7.
“It was fairly stunning that the authorities gave permission to the headman to hold out the protest regardless of written complaints in opposition to the headman by the Christian neighborhood in two totally different incidents,” Hakku mentioned. “As a substitute of appearing in opposition to the headman, the police supported the shutdown. This reveals the bias of the authorities.”
The hostile tone of the Nationwide Democratic Alliance authorities, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Get together (BJP), in opposition to non-Hindus, has emboldened Hindu extremists and others to assault Christians since Narendra Modi took energy in Might 2014, non secular rights advocates say.
India ranked eleventh on Christian help group Open Doorways’ 2025 World Watch Listing of the nations the place it’s most tough to be a Christian. The nation was thirty first in 2013, however its place worsened after Modi got here to energy.
This text was initially revealed at Morning Star Information
Morning Star Information is the one unbiased information service focusing completely on the persecution of Christians. The nonprofit’s mission is to offer full, dependable, even-handed information with a view to empower these within the free world to assist persecuted Christians, and to encourage persecuted Christians by informing them that they don’t seem to be alone of their struggling.
