Editorial Pick
Attacks aginst Christians increased by 500% since 2014: Rights Groups
Current Updates | Editorial Pick | Editorial team | 06-Nov-2025
This news is of significant interest to all Christian communities; therefore, the editorial team considers it important to highlight for readers who may have missed reading the original. This is courtesy of the Wire dated November 2025.
New Delhi: On November 4, Christian rights activists assembled at the Press Club of India to release a report about an alarming and sustained annual surge in incidents of violence against the religious minority in India. A statement released at the press conference alleged that there’s been a 500% rise in the number of hate crimes targeting Christians since 2014.
“Between 2014 and 2024,” the statement notes, “incidents of violence against Christians increased from 139 to 834 incidents – a 500% surge over just ten years. The total number of documented incidents across this 12-year period reached 4,959 cases, affecting Christian individuals, families, and institutions nationwide. This represents an average annual increase of 69.5 incidents, demonstrating not episodic violence but sustained, systematic escalation.”
Speaking at the conference, Sister Minakshi cited multiple instances of attacks against Christian by Hindutva groups. “There is an organised effort,” she said, “to divide people on the basis of religion.” Rights activist Michael Williams said that the bogey of conversion is routinely “weaponised before every election by the present government”.
Advocate Tehmina Arora spoke about the abuse against tribal Christians who she alleged are being subjected to gruesome atrocities and exclusion for adopting the Christian faith.
“There are about seven million tribal Christians across India. These people live in some of the most remote locations of the country and are extremely vulnerable, which is why they are classified as Scheduled Tribes,” she said.
Citing examples from Chhattisgarh, Arora alleged that there is a systematic attempt to persecute Christians who belong to tribal communities.
“In January 2025, a woman named Kanika Kashyap from Bastar was brutally assaulted because she had converted. She was pregnant at the time and suffered a miscarriage. She filed a police complaint, but the police did nothing. Then, in Jamshedpur in July 2025, some people were attacked in their own home during a small gathering. Someone overheard that a “conversion” was happening there and alerted others. A mob assembled and attacked them. Later, the police investigated and found it was just a dinner, not a conversion meeting,” she said.
Arora added that even ordinary things – taking a train, having dinner or being a nun – can lead to accusations of conversion. “That’s why we haven’t even arranged tea here today – lest anyone think we are trying to convert them!”
Tribal Christians, she said, also face another very effective form of discrimination – social boycott. “In such boycotts, social contact is cut off. No one speaks to you. You are fined for talking to Christians or inviting them to social events. Homes are burned, fields are destroyed, livestock is taken, and people are denied jobs. They are not even allowed to bury their dead.”
“This issue even reached the Supreme Court, which said its hands were tied and urged society to act. Social boycott has become a huge problem. People are pressured to return to their old faith through “ghar wapsi” (re-conversion). But faith is not something one changes lightly – it is a deep conviction. This is what true “forced conversion” looks like: pressure to abandon one’s chosen faith.”
In just the first nine months of 2025, the press statement says, 579 incidents were recorded but FIRs were filed in just 39. This includes 71 cases of intimidation/harassment, 51 cases of restrictions on prayers, 9 physical assaults, and 7 property damage cases.
The statement noted an average annual increase of 69.5 hate crimes in the last decade with over 76% of the cases being reported from 5 states. Uttar Pradesh remained the worst state in terms of absolute number of recorded incidents, accounting for 31.6% of the cases.
The activists at the conference alleged a systematic failure by law enforcement to register complaints from Christian victims, creating a climate of impunity for the perpetrators. At least 21 Christians lost their lives in hate crimes between 2016 and 2020 including a man who was intentionally electrocuted in Rajasthan, they said.
Multiple Christian rights groups have come together to organise a National Christian Convention at Jantar Mantar in New Delhi to raise these concerns with the Union government
The event is scheduled to take place on November 29. “This is not a political movement, but a constitutional dialogue among Indian citizens from the Christian faith, exercising their democratic rights. The systematic and egregious violence and hostility coupled with police inaction and lack of access of justice requires solutions,” says a statement by the National Convention.
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