Repeated attacks on Catholic institutions in India

Police have arrested 16 people after roughly 60 slogan-shouting Hindu hardliners barged into two Catholic schools in eastern India on April 22.

Around 50 young men of saffron brigade with flags written ABVP barged into Holy Cross School, Hazaribagh, shouting slogans against the school to close down. The young men broke open the gate and jumped off the boundary wall to get inside one school. They also threatened the school saying if school is not closed they would break the windows and the equipment of the school. Police arrived on time and there was not much damage.

Christian leaders say Jharkhand state, ruled by Modi's Hindu-nationalist BJP, has been witnessing a campaign against Christians ever since the BJP came to power in New Delhi a year ago following a landslide victory for the party in parliamentary elections.

The attacks are "part of a plan to scare away Christian missionaries” from the poverty-stricken area, where many people from tribal communities live, said Fr Gerald D’Souza, an education advocate.

The missionaries include religious priests and nuns who are engaged in the work of education in the state of Jharkhand who expressing great fear even for their own personal safety, let alone the protection of their education institutions from attacks by members of these fundamentalist groups.