Attacks on Christians surged during the Christmas and New Year period in the southern Indian state of Karnataka, which in 2011 was named the most unsafe place for the religious minority for the third consecutive year. With 49 cases of violence and hostility against Christians in 2011, Karnataka remained the state with the highest number of cases of persecution, according to the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) annual report.
The annual report is titled "Battered and Bruised...". The Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), based in Karnataka, documented at least six anti-Christian attacks between Christmas Eve 2011 and New Year's Day. On the evening of December 25, according to the GCIC, around 20 people beat Christians with stones and wooden clubs as they celebrated Christmas in a house in the Maindguri area, near Surathkal, not far from Mangalore city, in Dakshina Kannada district.
The attackers, allegedly belonging to a local extremist group, Hindu Jagran Vedike (Hindu Awakening Forum), ruthlessly attacked the Christians, including women and children. A 27-year-old man named Joyson broke his leg, a pastor's wife named Lata was injured in the chest, a 29-year-old woman named Roshini and another woman named Annamma suffered head injuries, and a 23-year-old man named Deepak suffered a broken nose in the attack.
A local Christian told Compass news service over the phone that police had arrested five of the attackers, but that they had been released on bail. GCIC President Sajan K. George, called the attacks on Christians "shameful" and "a blot on secular and democratic India." The local government and authorities were "complicit in the persecution against Christians," he added.
