More than 1,000 Christians protested in front of the Jabalpur district police head-quarters in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh on April 1, seeking action against assailants who attacked two Catholic priests and harassed some pilgrims earlier this week. The protesters also urged the administration and police to take action against those involved in a spate of other attacks on Christians in Madhya Pradesh, known as a hotspot of hostility toward Christians. They also submitted a petition containing their demands to the highest government official in Jabalpur district – the district collector. A Christian leader said the collector had promised action against the violators. In the latest incident, a Hindu mob assaulted and attacked the priests in front of police when they arrived at the station to assist some Indigenous pilgrims on March 31. The tribal Christians had been taken to the police station, detained and accused of religious conversion activities, said Jabalpur diocesan Father George Thomas, one of the victims. About 50 pilgrims, including women and children from tribal-dominated Mandla district, were on a pilgrimage to visit several churches in Jabalpur, some 100 kilometers from their homes, as part of Lenten activities. When the pilgrims’-chartered bus arrived at a church in Ranjhi, some Hindu activists took the bus keys and drove them to a police station, accusing them of violating the state’s stringent anti-conversion law. Thomas, the procurator of Jabalpur diocese, said that he and Father Davis George, the vicar general, went to Ranjhi police station “to assist the detained Catholics and explain the situation to the police.” At the police station, “the Hindu mob surrounded us and shouted slogans against us. Some from the crowd pushed us and slapped us,” Thomas told on April 1.
Video footage of the incident that went viral on social media showed women slapping a priest and another man shouting at the Christians. Manas Dwivedi, the officer in charge at the police station, refuted the allegation of religious conversion.