6/30/2025 India (International Christian Concern) — A mob of hundreds of Hindu nationalists brutally attacked 20 Christian families on June 21 as they ate lunch together in the Malkangiri district of southern Odisha.

The mob, armed with sticks and sharp objects, brutally beat the members of the 20 families who live in three different villages. Eight people suffered severe injuries, including head trauma, and had to be hospitalized.  

Since the villages are in a remote area, news of the attack emerged slowly. One of the victims managed to inform a pastor living near Malkangiri. The pastor sent a vehicle to transfer the injured to the district hospital. 

Although a complaint regarding the attack has been filed with police, authorities have not taken action against the alleged perpetrators.  

A delegation representing various Christian organizations, including Rashtriya Christian Morcha, Malkangiri District Christian Manch, Progressive Christian Alliance, the Council of Evangelical Churches in India, and Alliance Defending Freedom, visited victims of the attack. 

The delegation, accompanied by legal representatives, also met with Malkangiri’s superintendent of police, questioning the delay in legal action and calling for the immediate arrest of the perpetrators. 

According to Pallab Lima, state general secretary of the Rashtriya Christian Morcha, tensions had been building in the area for the last few months. 

“Hindu right-wing activists continued to threaten people to change their religion and accept Hinduism, but many of the people who are Christian by birth resisted,” he said. 

The state secretary general claimed that local Hindutva outfits had launched a “Sanskriti Bachao Abhiyan” or Save the Culture campaign to pressure Christians to convert to Hinduism. 

Police later downplayed the violence, blaming it on sibling rivalry. 

“The incident was triggered by a dispute between two brothers, one a Christian and the other a Hindu,” said Rigan Kinda, an inspector with the Malkangiri Police. “The Hindu brother was pressuring his Christian sibling to return to the Hindu fold.” 

Christian leaders alleged that the Bajrang Dal, a Hindu nationalist organization that has increasingly targeted Christians since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in Odisha in the last year, is behind the attack. 

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