Pastor Ahron from Dharmapuri along with a believer Promod was attacked by RSS Activities for distributing Pocket Calendar on Monday 16th April 11 am. The While Pastor was waiting to meet the local MLA Kople Easwar for some personal reason, the Hindu radicals noticed that the pastor was carrying the small pocket calendar. They asked pastor and forced him to part with the calendar. After receiving the small pocket calendar, they abused the pastor stating that he is converting people to Christianity in the temple town.
Meanwhile the RSS Activities accompanied by Ramesh local editor VARTHA and SRIRAMULU Local Editor of SATCHI news paper took the pastor to Dharmapuri police station circle Inspector Mahender and registered a complaint on the basis of G.O. 746 & GO 747.  read more »

Thuvakudi, Trichy (Tamil Nadu): 25-02-2012 - Pastor John Chidambaran has been ministering at Thuvakudi in Trichy District during the last 20 years and he has a church named Mercy Prayer Hall which he built himself about 20 years ago. Also, the land on which the church and the parsonage were built is his own land which also includes about 3 1/2 (three and a half) cents of poramboke land, allotted to him by the Tahsildar of Tiruvarambur.
However, the pastor’s neighbour who claims and demands a part of the poramboke land, picked up a quarrel with the pastor and broke the water pipeline on February 21, 2012. The aggrieved pastor then was forced to lodge a complaint at the Thuvakudi Police Station about the high-handed behavior of his neighbour.  read more »

Case filed under Orissa Freedom of religion act quashed by court

Jagatsinghpur – Orissa: It is a story of triumph of truth over untruth, of good over evil, and of the victory of a fight of a believer who fought his battle against great many odds in the very village of his birth for his very survival. He also fought his battle in the courts in Orissa for seven long years, with unswerving persistence and commitment, and of his unflinching faith in the saving power of Jesus Christ. Pastor Subash Samal (31), s/o Govinda Samal, along with his co-accused, his assistant, Pastor Dhneswar Kandi (45), s/o Banshidhar Kandi, was set at liberty, having found not guilty, in the Court of the Additional Sessions Judge, Jagatsinghpur Disrict in Orissa, by The Additional Sessions Judge, Sri. S.N. Sahoo, on 23-02-2011.
The long legal battle began on trumped up charges against the two pastors of trying to convert the SC Hindus to Christianity and of speaking insultingly about Hinduism and using obscene language to abuse the SCs living in a village called Kilipal in Jagatsinghpur District about 90 Kilometres from Bubaneshwar, the capital of Orissa. In the FIR filed against them by the informant, one Babaji Das, it was also alleged that the two pastors promised them houses under Indira Abas House Scheme and that they also promised them medical treatment free of cost, thereby endangering their freedom of religion, and that all this was done in a public place in the course of a week, before 16-2-2004 when the FIR was filed. In addition to this, they were also alleged to have manhandled them and threatened with dire consequences, when they protested against the pastors forcibly converting Hindus to Christianity, and that the pastors also destroyed the choura of the informant, which is held sacred by the Hindus. The long legal battle that began in the lower court ( G.R. case No.101/2004), was subsequently committed by the SDJM, Jagatsinghpur, to the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Jagatsinghpur, on 14-8-2007 and was tried as S.T. Case No. 258/2007.
The accused persons stood charged for the offences under sections 294, 295, 298, 506/34, I.P.C. and under section 4 of the Freedom of Religion Act, and under section 3 (i) (x) of SC/ST (P.A.) Act. The case in the Court of Additional Sessions Judge, Jagatsinghpur, was tried by the Additional Sessions Judge, Sri. S. N. Sahoo. The Special Public Prosecutor appeared for the prosecution, and Sri. P. Parida & Associates, Advocates, appeared for the two accused pastors. There were 9 witnesses on behalf of the prosecution, and none on behalf of the defendants (the pastors). All the witnesses, including the one who filed the case, either contradicted themselves or could not depose themselves properly or give appropriate answers to the questions put to them by the defendants’ counsels, since the entire thing was a cooked up story. Some of the witnesses simply denied any knowledge of the occurrence of any of the incidents or any disturbance in the village on account of religious differences or the use of any obscene or foul language denigrating the SCs by the two pastors. Some of them also deposed before the court saying that the Christians and the Hindus had been living together side by side in the village and there was no problem as such in their midst. The arguments in the case were concluded on 18-02-2011, and the judgment was proclaimed by the judge on 23-02-2011. The concluding and main part of the judgment is as rendered below:  read more »