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Pastor in India seriously wounded by suspected Hindu extremists

According to Compass Direct News, suspected Hindu extremists struck an Indian pastor with what appeared to be sharp-edged metal rods on Sunday, Sept. 20 in Andhra Pradesh state, leaving him unconscious and profusely bleeding on a village road, reports Dan Wooding, founder of ASSIST Ministries.

The Compass story said that at least three unidentified men attacked Pastor Vanamali Parishudham, 35, as he returned from Sunday worship in Yellareddygudam village, five kilometers (nearly three miles) from his home village of Narketpalli, in Nalgonda district.

Nirmala Desai, deputy nursing superintendent at the Kamineni Institute of Medical Sciences in Narketpalli, told Compass that Pastor Parishudham sustained “a lot of blood loss” from the head injury. “He was brought to the hospital in time, saving him from excessive blood loss, or else it could have led to becoming fatal,” she said. “The wound was deep.”

Villagers who visited Pastor Parishudham in the hospital told him that the attackers were members of the Hindu extremist Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh who oppose his preaching and the new prayer house he recently opened in Narketpalli, the pastor told Compass.

Police have yet to make any arrests.

“Pastor Parishudham said a similar attack on another pastor took place three years ago in which Hindu extremists threatened to harm the leader if he did not stop preaching; the pastor left the village and never returned,” said the Compass story.

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TAGS: India Hindu extremists Pastor Vanamali Parishudham persecution anti-Christian violence

[09/30/2009]

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