When an elderly Christian woman in a village in India’s Tamil Nadu state was beaten by extremists, her attackers defended their actions by saying that she had defiled the road by walking on it during a Hindu festival. A dozen Christians who tried to rescue her were also injured when the extremists threw stones at them.
The incident is part of a surge in attacks against Christians in India. The number of reported incidents rose from 440 in 2017 to 477 in 2018, and more than 1,000 attacks on Christians were reported in the 15 months to March 2019.
