Haryana mob forces Christians to renounce faith, burn Bibles while chanting Jai Shri Ram. Police refuse to register FIR, highlighting rising attacks on minorities.
Newsroom (21/11/2025 Gaudium Press ) Christian leaders in Haryana have accused a Hindu mob of forcibly making local believers renounce Christianity and burn copies of the Bible in a viral video that has sparked national outrage over religious intimidation and alleged state complicity.
The incident, which reportedly took place on 9 November in Rohtak district, shows frightened Christians surrounded by a large crowd shouting “traitors” and “the Bible is dirt” while being coerced into signing statements abandoning their faith. Victims were then handed inflammable liquid and forced to set fire to their own Bibles as the mob chanted “Jai Shri Ram” and “Bharat Mata Ki Jai.”
Pradeep Mansi Gulati, president of Bharatiya Masih Samaj, told UCA News that Pastor Yahowa Das had visited a Christian family for routine prayers after a childbirth when members of Hindu groups, including Arya Samaj activists, arrived and accused them of illegal conversions.
Despite complaints lodged with Rohtak police and the deputy superintendent on 20 November, no First Information Report (FIR) has been registered as of 21 November, drawing sharp criticism that authorities are shielding the perpetrators.
Constitutional Violations
Legal experts and minority rights advocates say the incident constitutes multiple violations of the Indian Constitution:
- Article 25: Guarantees freedom to “profess, practise and propagate religion.” Forcing individuals to publicly renounce their faith under duress is a direct assault on this fundamental right.
- Article 15: Prohibits discrimination on grounds of religion. The targeted intimidation of Christians solely because of their faith amounts to religious discrimination.
- Article 21: Protects the right to life and personal liberty with dignity. Coercing citizens to destroy their sacred texts and film their humiliation infringes upon human dignity.
The inaction of police further violates Article 14 (equality before the law) by denying Christians equal protection that is routinely extended in cases involving majority-community victims.
Part of Broader BJP Assault on Secularism
The episode is the latest manifestation of a systematic BJP-led erosion of India’s constitutional secularism, enshrined in the Preamble and reinforced by the 42nd Amendment of 1976. Since the BJP assumed power in Haryana in 2014 and nationally the same year, the state has recorded a sharp rise in attacks on religious minorities, particularly Christians and Muslims.
The 2022 Haryana Prevention of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act – passed by the BJP government – has been weaponised to harass minority faiths while providing legal cover for vigilante groups. Similar “anti-conversion” laws in at least ten BJP-ruled states shift the burden of proof onto the accused and define even voluntary faith exploration as potential “allurement,” effectively criminalising the constitutional right to propagate religion.
Activists note that vigilante mobs routinely invoke “Jai Shri Ram” – a slogan popularised as a political war cry under the BJP – while enjoying near-total impunity. The refusal to register an FIR twelve days after the incident reinforces perceptions that law enforcement operates with partisan bias in BJP-ruled states, undermining the secular principle of equal citizenship.
Christians, who form just 0.20 percent of Haryana’s population, say such incidents have become routine since 2014, with places of worship vandalised and pastors routinely detained under anti-conversion pretexts.
“This is not an isolated event but part of a pattern where the state abdicates its duty to protect minorities, effectively making secularism meaningless,” said Minakshi Singh, a Delhi-based human-rights defender monitoring religious freedom cases.
As the video continues to circulate widely, calls are growing for immediate registration of an FIR, arrest of the perpetrators, and intervention by the National Human Rights Commission to restore constitutional protections for India’s smallest religious minority.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from UCA News
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