Indigenous Christians face difficulties in burying their dead because of their faith in a central Indian state, according to Church leaders. “It is really painful to see villagers create obstacles in burying the dead,” said Protestant minister Jaldev Andhkury after he was released from jail for officiating the funeral service of one of his relatives in Bastar district in central Chhattisgarh state.  The 42-year-old Andhkury was among the seven people, inclu-ding six pastors and a deacon, arrested after they joined the funeral service of Pastor Iswar Nag, his cousin, in his ancestral village in Chhindawada villa-ge.  It is a custom among villa-gers in Chhattisgarh to bury their dead in ancestral villages even after their conversion to Christianity. Andhkury said their forefathers were buried in the village, but now villagers object to the burial of those who converted to Christianity. “The villagers opposed the burial on the plea that it would bring misfortune to the village and summoned the police. But, we still buried the body in the century-old graveyard,” Andh-kury told on Oct. 30, a week after being released from prison. The police summoned seven of us who prayed over the body and arrested us after accusing us of creating law and order problems, he said. They were released from prison on Oct. 22 after a local court accepted their bail pleas. The villagers, along with police, wanted us to exhume the body from the graveyard, but “we refused,” he added.