Pastor Abhay was beaten and put in jail after being falsely accused of forcing people to convert to Christianity. |
Abhay Jhadav, a Gospel for Asia-supported pastor, and the believers of his church were worshiping God in their Sunday morning service when a group of about 50 anti-Christians barged in, attacked the believers and kidnapped their pastor.
As soon as the extremists entered the church, they began grabbing things inside the building and throwing them around. They snatched the songbooks and all the Bibles they could find in the hands of the believers. They even took the tithes and offerings.
They dragged Pastor Abhay outside and started yelling and beating him.
“We think they came with the intention of killing Pastor Abhay,” reports a GFA field correspondent.
But instead of murdering the pastor, the anti-Christians put him in jail under allegations of forced conversion. For seven hours, Abhay remained bruised and broken behind the bars of his jail cell.
The believers of Abhay’s church went to plead his case to the police. They tried to tell the officers the pastor was falsely accused—he wasn’t forcefully converting people to Christianity. They explained that envy triggered the attack, and that Pastor Abhay did not convert any one of them; rather, they worshiped the Lord out of their own choosing in Spirit and in truth.
After hearing the believers’ appeals, the police released Abhay.
These Christians request prayers for their pastor, that he will be protected from future attacks, and also that those who oppose Jesus will come to know Him intimately.