by Luke Booker, Worthy News Correspondent
(Worthy News) – Hindu nationalist mobs attacked three churches in Southern India Sunday night, leaving the local Christian communities distraught, a leading Christian advocate group reported.
The attacks took place in Andhra Pradesh, a province in Southern India, which were the first of their kind, seemed to be “well planned,” church leaders told International Christian Concern (ICC).
On March 9, during a worship service at Pastor Dodda Ganesh’s church in Andhra Pradesh’s Bapatla district, police interrupted the service, demanding a worship permit. They instructed Pastor Ganesh to stop leading the service and ordered him to meet with the deputy superintendent of police.
In another incident in the Satyasai district, a mob of over 25 people stormed the Jerusalem House of Prayer during a worship service. They ordered the pastor and congregation to either stop the service or move elsewhere.
The same mob then went to Grace Church, located near the local police precinct, and, in front of the police, demanded that Pastor Vinod Dua stop the church service.
“The situation is changing from bad to worse even in places which were once considered to be safe places like Andhra Pradesh and Maharashtra,” Pastor Jacob Chandan told the ICC, adding that police feign helplessness, claiming it’s impossible to arrest each member of a mob.
Since the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi won the 2014 elections, there has been a rise in Hindu nationalist organizations in India. As of 2025, India is ranked 11th on the Open Doors World Watch List, indicating it is one of the top countries where Christians experience severe persecution.
Copyright 1999-2025 Worthy News. This article was originally published on Worthy News and was reproduced with permission.
Latest News from Worthy News
The secretary general of the NATO military alliance on Thursday mourned four American soldiers who were killed during a military exercise in Lithuania.
President Donald Trump and some Republicans were quick to shrug off stock losses Thursday as the market responds to a jolt from Trump’s reciprocal tariffs.
Roughly $1.7 trillion was erased from the S&P 500 Index of the 500 most influential companies at the start of trading at the New York Stock Exchange Thursday amid worries that President Donald J. Trump’s sweeping new round of tariffs could plunge the economy, and much of the world, into a recession.
Pastor Praveen Pagadala, one of India’s most well-known Christian evangelists, has been found dead under alleged suspicious circumstances in the southern state of Andhra Pradesh, Worthy News learned Wednesday. He was 46.
U.S. President Donald J. Trump announced Wednesday he would sign “a historic executive order instituting reciprocal tariffs on countries throughout the world” ranging from 10 percent to 49 percent.
European Central Bank head Christine Lagarde warned Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump’s planned tariffs will have a negative impact worldwide, with the damage depending on how far they go, how long they last, and whether they lead to successful negotiations.
The FBI ordered agents to stop discussing Hunter Biden’s laptop just hours after one of its own inadvertently confirmed its authenticity to Twitter, internal messages show. Ahead of The Post’s 2020 reports, the FBI had warned tech giants of a potential Russian disinformation dump resembling the laptop contents. Once the story broke, Facebook execs weighed censorship strategies to align with the expected Biden-Harris administration, according to a congressional investigation.