UKHRUL: The North East Catholic Research Forum has expressed its concerns over the rising incident of assaults on Christians in India and sought the urgent intervention of Prime Minister Narendra Modi over the issue.
In a memorandum to the Prime Minister, the North East Catholic Research Forum highlighted the various incidents of attacks on the Christian community by the Sangh Parivar, especially in the lead-up to Christmas and also during Christmas, 2025.
The Forum also enlisted some of the disturbing signs in the last two years – in 2024, 834 incidents of attacks on Christians were recorded, which counts to 69 incidents of violence against Christians every month; between January and November 2025, 706 incidents have been reported, which include physical attacks, sexual offences, murder, threat, intimidation, destruction of places of worship, disruption of prayer services, and desecration of religious items.
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It alleged that the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal were the chief architects of these violent incidents, while adding that the RSS, which shares a common ideology with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), has come to its notice for using their front organisations to target Christians, not only to restrict their religions activities, but even services to humanity.
The Forum mentioned, in the memorandum, the various incidents of attacks on the Christian community that happened in December 2025, including the assault of visually impaired woman by Anju Bhargava, said to be vice president of the Jabalpur unit of the BJP on December 20; disruption of a peaceful Christmas prayer service in Ghaziabad (UP) on December 21 by activists of the Hindu Raksha Dal; heckling of women wearing Santa Claus caps by a group of men on December 22 in Delhi’s Lajpat Nagar; imposing 24-hour bandh by the Sarva Hindu Samaj in Raipur (Chhattisgarh) on December 24 with the obvious intention of preventing people from engaging themselves in Christmas shopping, decoration of halls, churches, etc; and vandalisation of the nativity crib and other Christmas decorations at St Mary’s School, Panigaon, in Nalbari district (Assam) on December 24 by the members of the local Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal, among others.
The North East Catholic Research Forum claimed that these are not stray incidents by nondescript lumpen elements, but well-planned and systematically executed incidents by organisations who had qualms about naming or identifying the organisation they belonged to.
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“The Christian community is deeply troubled by this unprecedented trend of preventing Christians from fulfilling their religious obligation on an important and sacred occasion like Christmas. We wonder what made these anti-Christian forces so fearless. Even when a strong leader like you is continuously reaching out to the Christian community, they continue to target Christians with impunity. Are they reading something which we are unable to read?” the Forum stated.
Urging the Prime Minister to urgently intervene on the issue, the North East Catholic Research Forum expressed its hope and confidence that a word of disapproval from the Prime Minister against such deplorable activities would certainly change the sorry state of affairs.
It further appealed to the PM to direct states to refrain from misusing anti-conversion laws to torment the poor, innocent, and helpless Christian public.
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