Chhattisgarh Family Chooses Christ Over Ancestral Land

In Bhandardigi village, Durgukondal Block, Kanker District, Chhattisgarh, a Christian family has resolved to leave its ancestral home rather than renounce Christ. The decision follows a September 21 assault by a mob of more than 150 Hindu extremists and subsequent pressure from local authorities.

The three related Christian households—eighteen people in all—were the last believers left in the village. On September 20 a crowd disrupted their worship. The next day assailants carrying wooden sticks beat women, children and the elderly and vandalized homes.

Mob Violence and Police Delay

Vikas Salam, 24, said the attackers “spared nobody” and that he “was hit the most.” He described being strangled, slapped and kicked, and said blows to his back continued “till the extent that the stick broke.” His uncle Somji Nureti, 40, was choked at the throat and neck. Cousin Pradeep Uike, 25, suffered severe blows to the back. Somji Nureti’s 11-year-old son, Rohan Nureti, was beaten on the legs so badly he could scarcely walk.

Salam fled the crowd to call police stationed less than two miles away. Officers did not respond until he contacted the Kanker District superintendent of police and warned that the Christians would be killed. Without phone recordings of the assault, police took no action. Village elders interrupted his complaint, claiming the Christians had only been “slapped… two or three times.” Four people were hospitalized. Five weeks later survivors still reported body aches, hearing problems and throat pain. On returning from the hospital they found their belongings thrown onto the road and were ordered to leave.

Before the attack the families had already been forced to move worship from Salam’s house to a room on their farmland after mobs disrupted services from September 6. Between September 13 and 20 the village head and council summoned them six times. They were also barred from the subsidized monthly government ration.

Pressure to Renounce the Faith

After the violence a team of officials—including the village head, police officers and magistrates—pressed the families. Salam recounted being told: “You want land or Jesus Christ? You have to choose one.” Ram Salam, 50, and representatives of the other two families agreed to convert to Hinduism. Ram Salam told his son they had to “save ourselves, our land and property.” Villagers also demanded a religious offering.

Vikas Salam refused. “If we were willing to renounce Christ, there would have been no need for these high officials to come and pressure us. They came, because we were not ready to renounce.” Hindu nationalists call such returns “homecoming”; Christian leaders regard them as forced conversion to Hinduism.

The family remains under constant threat and is waiting to leave. Salam said: “We will not deny Christ, because since the day we started to believe, our lives have changed.” Their witness joins the long record of believers who, under threat to property and life, hold fast to the name of Jesus rather than trade faith for security.