IAMC Condemns Anti-Christian Violence in India; Calls on US to Sanction Bajrang Dal and VHP
WASHINGTON, D.C. (December 29, 2025) — The Indian American Muslim Council (IAMC) has strongly condemned the unprecedented wave of harassment, vandalism, and physical violence directed at India’s Christian community during the 2025 Christmas season. Reports from across multiple Indian states reveal a harrowing and coordinated effort by Hindu far-right extremist groups to disrupt sacred prayer services, desecrate religious symbols, and strike terror into the hearts of worshippers during their holiest time of the year.
This latest surge in violence is not an isolated phenomenon but the peak of a decade-long trajectory of systematic persecution that has transformed India from a pluralistic democracy into a landscape of fear for its religious minorities.
“The systematic targeting of Christians in India is no longer a series of isolated events; it is a clear, state-sanctioned campaign to marginalize religious minorities and achieve a vision of a nation where only one faith is supreme,” said Mohammed Jawad, President of IAMC.
The Christmas season of 2025 has been marked by a disturbing level of ritualized intimidation and mob violence. In Raipur, Chhattisgarh, a violent mob affiliated with militant group Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad stormed the Magneto Mall on Christmas Eve, smashing festive decorations and assaulting staff members while demanding to know the religious and caste identities of those present.
In the Kanker district of the same state, the situation turned even more macabre earlier in December, when a mob asked for the exhumation of the body of a Christian man, claiming his burial on ancestral land was a violation of local norms.
Similar reports have surfaced from the north and south of the country. In Assam, extremists disrupted celebrations at St. Mary’s English School, burning nativity scenes and destroying banners. In Uttar Pradesh, groups gathered outside cathedrals to recite sectarian slogans and perform rival religious rituals to drown out Christmas prayers, all under the pretext of preventing “illegal conversions.” The Quint has documented at least 10 such major incidents across several states, illustrating a national pattern of hostility that is often enabled by the silence or active complicity of local law enforcement. In Kerala, a traditionally inclusive state, even children were not spared; a group of minors participating in a carol procession was attacked, their instruments destroyed by individuals linked to radical groups who then falsely branded the children as a “criminal gang” to justify the assault.
The Evangelical Fellowship of India’s Religious Liberty Commission has documented a sharp rise in targeted violence against Christians, from 601 incidents in 2023 to at least 830 in 2024. As of November 2025, the United Christian Forum (UCF) reported 706 incidents targeting Christians in the first eleven months of the year alone. Perhaps most damning is the long-term trend highlighted by the National Christian Convention in November 2025, which reported that incidents of violence against Christians have increased from 139 in 2014 to 834 in 2024, a nearly 500 percent increase over a decade.
Since 2014, the rise of Hindu nationalism has provided a scaffold for this persecution. The “anti-conversion” laws now active in over a dozen Indian states have become the primary weapon for vigilante groups. These laws are frequently used to arrest pastors on baseless charges of “allurement” or “force,” even when the “allurement” is as simple as offering free education or basic healthcare. In reality, these statutes serve to criminalize the very existence of the Christian faith in many parts of rural India. Under this decade of rule, the narrative has been shifted to paint Christians as “foreign elements” or “predators” seeking to destroy Indian culture, a rhetoric that is regularly echoed by high-ranking government officials and amplified by a compliant media.
The broader persecution of Christians in India involves not just physical violence but also social and economic boycotts. In many tribal regions, Christian families are denied access to village wells, expelled from their ancestral homes, and barred from burying their dead in public cemeteries.
“The violence we see this Christmas is the predictable outcome of a decade where hate speech has been rewarded and the rule of law has been bent to serve a majoritarian agenda. We demand that the Indian government immediately cease its rhetoric of division and uphold its constitutional duty to protect all citizens. The 500 percent rise in attacks over the last ten years is a stain on India’s democratic credentials that cannot be ignored by its international partners,” said Rasheed Ahmed, Executive Director of IAMC.
IAMC calls upon the Indian Ministry of Home Affairs to ensure the immediate arrest of those responsible for the Christmas 2025 violence and to provide adequate security for Christian institutions. We also urge the international community, including the United States government to accept the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom’s recommendation to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern and to impose sanctions on groups including Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad and leaders involved in the persecution of Christians in the country.
