Jabalpur: Hindu extremists attack Christians on Jubilee pilgrimage
Bishop Valan Arasu reports the incident to AsiaNews. The faithful, a group of 50 tribal people, a priest and two nuns were visiting some parishes in the diocese. The extremists attacked them twice and tried to denounce the priest for ‘forced conversion’. The intervention of the agents to protect the pilgrims.
Delhi (AsiaNews) - Hindu fundamentalists have attacked a group of Christians visiting churches as part of a pilgrimage organised by the diocese as one of the initiatives promoted in 2025 to coincide with the Jubilee Year.
Msgr. Valan Arasu, bishop of Jabalpur, in Madhya Pradesh: ‘Yesterday, 31 March, Fr John Quadros, parish priest of Mandla, and his parishioners, a total of 50 tribal adults accompanied by two nuns, travelled by bus on a pilgrimage to various diocesan churches, as part of the events planned for the 2025 Jubilee. Mandla and Jabalpur - explains the prelate - are about 90 km apart’.
During the first stop at the Holy Trinity Church in Jabalpur, the prelate continues, extremist groups ’approached them, verbally accusing them of false conversions and took them to the Omti police station.
After conducting the necessary investigations, the police found nothing against the parish priest, as all the pilgrims had come voluntarily, so they released them and allowed them to resume their journey’.
The group is made up of tribal Christians, whose ancestors converted to Catholicism more than a century ago. According to the reconstruction of the events, the attack was carried out by people linked to the radical Hindu movement Bajrang Dal, a militant organisation that forms the youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), whose ideology is based on the nationalist Hindutva movement and a general intolerant approach towards other religions.
The group was released by the police and continued on their way to the church of St Thomas in Ranchi. However, Bajrang Dal activists followed them to the place of worship, calling on other local members of the movement to support them, creating a crowd that surrounded the pilgrims and forcibly took them to the town's police station.
Despite the complaints and intimidation, the police once again found no irregularity or offence against the priest and the pilgrims. The request to file a complaint and open a file (First Information Report, FIR) regarding Fr Quadros was also rejected. ‘To guarantee the safety of the pilgrims, the police - the bishop explained - kept them inside the station, while outside the crowd of extremists was growing’.
Yesterday at around 2 p.m., Father Davis George, vicar general (and cathedral priest) together with Father George Thomas, diocesan procurator, went to the barracks to meet the group.
However, some Bajrang Dal members approached the priests, physically attacking them and verbally abusing them. ‘Fortunately,’ said the bishop, “the officers protected the priest and the pilgrims, keeping them inside the station for their safety and security.” Around 4:30 p.m., the police allowed the priests and pilgrims to leave the station and took them back to Mandla.
Meanwhile, Bajrang Dal is trying to file a complaint against the Mandla priests under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. ‘Every good thing the Catholic Church does is welcomed and exploited by the opposition. Everything is seen through the lens of conversion. We are here to serve humanity, conversion - he concludes - is only God's work’.
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