NEW DELHI , February 4, 2021 ( Nobelie update) –
Leela Bai, eight months
pregnant, rushed outside a house she
was visiting in central India after
hearing the commotion of a Hindu
extremist mob attacking tribal
Christians preparing to celebrate the
New Year.
The mob pushed her down and kicked
her stomach until she fell unconscious,
and later that evening she miscarried
on the way to a hospital – which
declined to give her any care, she said.
Scores of tribal Christians planning to
celebrate New Year’s Eve with a
thanksgiving service instead spent the
night in the mountains where they had
fled to save their lives.
“My baby died in my womb after they
pushed me down and kicked my
stomach,” the 25-year-old Bai said as
she wept.
Accusing the tribal Christians of
converting people, the 30 Hindu
extremists were carrying wooden
batons and stones as they attacked the
Christians in Dewada village, Barwani
District, sources said.
“Will you people never learn?” members
of the mob said, according to the
homeowner, Sardar Vaskale. “We will
not let you conduct the prayer meeting,
nor will we let you slaughter the goat;
you are carrying out conversions.”
Dividing themselves into groups, the
Hindu extremists took Vaskale to one
side and began to beat him while
another group approached the women
and girls, seized their mobile phones
and began sexually harassing them,
survivors said. Another group entered
Vaskale’s house and began to open
and search the luggage of the Christian
guests, including girls ages 15 and 17.
They also thoroughly searched his
house.
Vaskale and a visiting pastor had
organized a church service of
thanksgiving and prayer and had
obtained permission for a gathering of
more than 100 people. The New Year’s
Eve service planned from 8 p.m. to 1
a.m. was open to all, and celebration
meal was planned for the afternoon of
Jan. 1.
Vaskale and the other Christians had
gone outside the house when the mob
appeared at the door; Bai was the only
one who had stayed inside. When she
went out, they intentionally pushed her
down after seeing she was pregnant,
she said.
“I fell down and landed on my
stomach,” she said. “I got dizzy, and
immediately someone from the mob
came and started kicking my
stomach.”
She said she did not know how long
they kicked her after she became
unconscious. The assailants beat all
the men, women and children, eight
Christians in all, Vaskale said.
The tribal Christians said they suspect
the assailants were members of the
Hindu extremist Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the
ideological mother of the ruling party in
the state, the Bharatiya Janata Party
(BJP).
The assailants called the police while
they continued to assault and harass
the Christians, Vaskale said.
“Mangal Patel, a man from the RSS
mob, told me that they all are carrying
guns and threatened that they would
kill us if we dared to report the matter
to the police or to anybody,” he told
Morning Star News. “Leela had lost
consciousness, and two women quietly
and quickly picked her up and took her
to my aunt’s house nearby.”
As the assailants had seized their cell
phones, Vaskale searched for and
found someone from whom to borrow
a phone to call an ambulance and
inform Bai’s husband, he said.
Bai’s husband, Rakesh Alawe, soon
arrived and rushed her to the Thikri
hospital two miles away, accompanied
by some older Christian women.
“Leela’s pain intensified as we drove in
the ambulance,” Alawe told Morning
Star News. Leela added, “Before we
reached the hospital, I delivered the
baby inside the ambulance, and he was
a dead baby.”
MEDICAL NEGLIGENCE
The attack had begun at about 2:30
p.m., and the couple reached the Thikri
hospital around 4:30 pm, mourning the
loss of their child.
“The doctors almost immediately
handed over our baby to Rakesh and
asked him to perform his last rites,” Bai
said.
Though Bai was weak from blood loss,
hospital authorities did not give her any
medical treatment, she and her
husband said.
“The medical staff did not check me,
nor did they give me any injection or
medicines,” Bai told Morning Star
News. “I just lay on the bed like a half-
dead person for six or seven hours.”
Christian leaders said hospital
authorities were under intense pressure
to give no treatment to her.
“It was plain to see that because of
political pressure, the hospital
authorities did not take Leela’s case,”
Idu Bhai Chauhan, a pastor and
Christian leader of Barwani told
Morning Star News.
Alawe took her to a Barwani
government hospital 22 miles away,
but when they arrived at about 3 a.m,
medical personnel also declined to
treat her, Bai said.
The nightmare scenario left Alawe
feeling harassed and helpless, he said.
“We were in trauma for already losing
our child because of the Hindu
extremists, and here we were hopping
from hospital to hospital seeking
medical attention for Leela, and the
extremists had influenced all these
people and placed hurdles for us
everywhere we went,” he said.
Hospital authorities told Bai to leave
the hospital at 11 a.m.
“They did not treat me in the hospital,
and when I asked a nursing staff to
give me something for my weakness
and dizziness, she shouted back at me
and asked me to keep quiet,” Bai said.
The hospital appears to have made no
record of their visit. Sub-Divisional
Officer of Police (SDOP)
Ruprekha Yadav denied that the couple
went to the Barwani hospital.
“They did not reach the hospital –
there is no entry of their name in the
hospital register,” she told Morning Star
News.
As the couple had no money for a
private hospital, Pastor Chauhan later
arranged for payment for her to be
admitted to one, Alawe said.
POLICE INACTION
The Hindu extremists called police
intending to have the Christians
arrested under Madhya Pradesh’s
newly enacted “anti-conversion” law
prohibiting fraudulent or forcible
conversion.
The officer in charge of the police
station told Christians that officers
were under political pressure and thus
could do nothing for them, Sardar said.
Officer Yadav denied any kind of
political pressure and emphasized that
conversions were taking place at
Vaskale’s house. Conversions are not
illegal in India, but the new state law
requires advance permissions to
change religion.
“Conversion activity was taking place
in Sardar’s house when the Station In-
Charge reached there,” Yadav said.
She confirmed that police had
confiscated two bags from Vaskale’s
house, one belonging to the local
pastor, which contained a Bible,
Christian literature and banners for the
program – supposed to be evidence of
conversion activity.
Asked how the presence of a Bible
could be evidence of a crime if the
presence of a Hindu Geeta scripture at
a Hindu religious gathering was not,
Yadav agreed with the premise.
“It is an individual’s constitutional right
that whatever religion one wants to
follow, they are free to,” she said but
would not comment further.
Sardar and a few others went to the
Thikri police station to register a formal
complaint on the evening of Dec. 31,
Vaskale said. Officers made them wait
outside the station until 2 a.m. before
they would even speak to them, and
then told them to leave and come back
at daylight, he said.
All village Christians had fled to the
nearby mountains to spend the night,
he said.
“The RSS mob had told us that they
would kill us. We were so scared that
we fled to the mountains and hid there
for the night,” Vaskale said.
Pastor Chauhan said that the village
Christians were relatively new in faith
and were deeply frightened.
“They were told that they would be
arrested and would spend the rest of
their life in prison,” he said.
Vaskale and others went to the police
station on the morning of Jan. 1, where
police again made them wait outside –
this time until past midnight.
“From Dec. 31 till Jan. 5, we went to
the police station every day,” Vaskale
said. “We were only able to give a
written complaint at the police station,
but they would not register an FIR
[First Information Report]. We spent
each day waiting to be heard by the
police. But the policemen said, ‘Why do
you come here? We can do nothing.
There is pressure from the
authorities.’”
PROTEST
Christian leaders from Barwani, Indore
and surrounding districts decided to
lead a peaceful protest outside the
police station demanding that their
complaint be registered.
Members of tribal rights groups joined
the protests at Thikri police station, as
did Bai, who sat outside the station
from noon of Jan. 6 till the evening of
Jan. 7.
“Leela was very weak physically, yet
she spent more than 30 hours outside
the police station under the sky, in
acute winter,” said Jaikar Kristi, a
Christian leader who reached Thikri
from Indore to support the Christians.
Already weak, Bai fell ill after the
protest and had to be hospitalized on
Jan. 8.
“I could not stand or walk,” Bai said. “I
felt dizzy all the time.”
Officials at the police station
threatened to arrest the Christians if
they did not leave the premises, said
Vaskale.
National media reported that Raju
Patel, member of the tribal rights group
JAYS, claimed that police pressured
the victims to sign an agreement with
the assailants or withdraw their
complaint.
“We have held a day-long dharna
[protest] at the police station
demanding a FIR, but no action has
been taken even after two weeks
because the attackers are associated
with the RSS,” Patel reportedly said.
Under Christian leader Kristi’s
guidance, the victims submitted a
private complaint in the magistrate’s
office in Barwani.
“We have requested the honorable
court to direct the police to file an FIR
in the case of the death of the fetus,”
attorney Umesh Mansode told Morning
Star News.
A hearing took place on Jan. 27 with
Kristi and the attorney present.
“The magistrate said that the Madhya
Pradesh anti-conversion law, Section
3/5(1), is a new law for him, and he
will have to study the law,” Kristi said.
“He said that he needs 10 days to
study the law, and then he will further
hear the case.”
AUTOPSY
Alawe, family members and the pastor
buried the deceased baby at 7 p.m. on
the same day as the attack. After tribal
Christians persisted in calls for police
to investigate, officers agreed to
exhume the body and conduct an
autopsy.
The body was exhumed for autopsy on
Jan. 8 and buried again on Jan. 9,
Officer Yadav said.
Authorities have not shared results
with the parents or with others, but
Yadav told Morning Star News that the
autopsy report states, “No definite
opinion can be given regarding the
cause of death,” and thus, “we
preserved the viscera and sent it
further to the Forensic Science
Laboratory for analysis, to clarify the
cause of death.”
The hostile tone of the National
Democratic Alliance government, led by
the Hindu nationalist BJP, against non-
Hindus, has emboldened Hindu
extremists in several parts of the
country to attack Christians since
Prime Minister Narendra Modi took
power in May 2014, religious rights
advocates say.
India ranked 10 on Christian support
organization Open Doors’ 2021 World
Watch List of the countries where it is
most difficult to be a Christian, as it
was in 2020. The country was 31st in
2013, but its position worsened after
Modi came to power.
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