Assailants forced a Protestant pastor to eat cow dung and bow down before a Hindu temple for alleged proselytisation in India’s eastern Odisha state.
Pastor Bipin Bihari Naik and his family were attending a prayer meeting at a private residence along with other families in Parjang village in Dhenkanal district when a 20-strong crowd broke in and assaulted him and those who came to his rescue.
They then subjected him to a public humiliation, making him eat cow dung, bow before a temple and chant Jai Shree Ram (“Hail Lord Ram”) after which they smeared him with vermillon, put a garland of slippers on his neck and paraded him through the village.
The incident took place on 4 January, but the matter only became public after a recent police report, prompted by a complaint from the pastor’s wife Vandana to a senior police official in the state.
Vandana said she and her children managed to escape and called the police, but they arrived only 45 minutes later and refused to lodge a complaint about the incident at the time.
It was only at the insistence of the Superintendent of Police that a complaint was finally lodged, but the attackers filed a counter report against Naik, accusing him of conducting forced conversions. Police later told reporters that nine people were arrested on 21 January and search is on for other suspects.
Condemning the attack, the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) demanded immediate action against the perpetrators and justice for the victim.
“Forcing a person to eat cow dung is a grave act of violence and humiliation, targeting an individual’s dignity and faith. The CBCI stands in solidarity with the victim and urges authorities to ensure safety and protection for all citizens,” it said in a statement.
Conrad K. Sangma, the chief minister of north-eastern Meghalaya state who is himself a Catholic, also condemned the incident and called it a blot on India’s plural fabric.
The opposition Congress party blamed the attack on the “hateful and divisive politics” of Prime Minister Narinder Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), and said it was a disgrace to humanity and civilised society.
Since Odisha state came under BJP rule in June 2024, there has been an increase in attacks on Christians, including denial of burial grounds by right-wing Hindu groups.
According to the India Hate Lab (IHL), an agency of the Washington-based Centre for the Study of Organised Hate, there were 1,318 verified in-person hate speech events targeting Muslims and Christians across India in 2025, averaging four incidents a day. BJP-ruled states accounted for 88 per cent of the hate-speech incidents.
IHL records that 1,289 of the 1,318 events (98 per cent) targeted Muslims – explicitly in 1,156 cases, and alongside Christians in 133 cases. This marked a 13 per cent increase from 2024 and a 97 per cent increase from the 668 incidents recorded in 2023.
Uttar Pradesh clocked the highest number of incidents with 266, followed by Maharashtra (193), Madhya Pradesh (172), Uttarakhand (155) and Delhi (76) – those five states together accounting for roughly two-thirds of all incidents.