Attack on church in Maharashtra

On December 23, 2018, unknown masked men attacked worshippers at a church meeting in Kolhapur’s Kowad village. The Maharashtra Police acted with exemplary swiftness and arrested the attackers within days. On the basis of CCTV footage there were nine suspects. Five of them were apprehended initially, and they confessed to the crime and were produced before a court. They were all from Belgaum district in Karnataka and were arrested in that State. The arrested men were Ajay Appaji Patil (23) of Hadignur, Amol Mudgekar (22) of Nilji, Gajanan Patil (23) of Nilji, Gopal Kalkamkar (20) of Sulga, and Mahesh Patil (19) of Attiwad. The remaining four were arrested later. Police said the boys were affiliated to Bajrang Dal factions in Belgaum.

Cases have been filed against the nine under Sections 143 (punishment), 147 (punishment for rioting), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon), 149 (every member of unlawful assembly guilty of offence committed in prosecution of common object), and 452 (house trespass after preparation for hurt, assault or wrongful restraint) of the Indian Penal Code. They have also been booked under Sections 295 (injuring or defiling place of worship with intent to insult the religion of any class), 307 (attempt to murder), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 326 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means) and 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees) of the IPC.

Kowad village in Kolhapur district in south Maharashtra is 94 km from Kolhapur city. It is very close— less than 30 km—to the Karnataka border and is easier to access from that side. It has a population of 3,837 and had 858 houses. On December 23 (Sunday) a small gathering of New Life Fellowship churchgoers were violently disrupted by about 20 masked men at the house of Bhimsen Ganpati Chavan, where prayers were under way presided over by their pastor, Anil Bhonsale. The attack happened around 45 minutes into the prayers which had started at 11 a.m. 

The attackers arrived on motorcycles, pelted the house with stones before barging in and assaulting the congregation with metal rods, long knives and bottles. The reason seemed to be an assumption on the part of the attackers that the church held religious conversion programmes. Of the reported 40 people who had gathered to pray, 12 were injured, eight with gashes on their heads. The attackers and their motorbikes were tracked with the help of CCTV footage that revealed the registration numbers of their motorbikes.

Although there has been no record of such violence in Kolhapur district in recent years, this has been the second such incident in Chandgad taluka. The first was in March 2017 when two groups of unidentified armed people disrupted a Siyon church service. The attackers were masked and assaulted the pastor and members of the congregation, who were apparently attending a birthday service. A smaller incident happened in January that year when a landlady at Yadrav village in Kolhapur district’s Shirol taluk (also on the Karnataka border) evicted a pastor who had rented a room in her house. She did so because her brother had started attending the church services of the pastor’s Shalom church.

The New Life Fellowship is one of many neocharismatic, evangelical churches in India and claims to have a membership of around 70,000 persons. The attack turns the spotlight yet again on rising religious intolerance. A report of the Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship, titled ‘Hate and Targeted Violence Against Christians In India’, says, “The year 2017 has been one of the most traumatic for the Christian community in India since the mass targeted violence of the Kandhamal pogrom in 2007 and 2008. The Religious Liberty Commission of the Evangelical Fellowship of India documented at least 351 cases of violence in 2017, by no means an exhaustive compilation as it is based on voluntary reporting and civil society investigations. Most cases go unreported either because the victim is terrified or the police, especially in the northern States, turn a blind eye and refuse to record the mandatory First Information Report.”

It goes on to analyse the data and finds that Tamil Nadu is the “most hostile State where Christians are concerned with 52 cases” of attacks against them, followed by Uttar Pradesh with 50, Chhattisgarh with 43 and Maharashtra with 38 cases. Physical violence, threats and harassment, stopping of worship and vandalism have been the main types on violence. It is also unsurprising that the aggression tends to peak in the months of March, April and December since there is more visible worship and celebration because of Lent, Easter and Christmas.