Lead story - Monday August 31, 2009 INDIA: CHRISTIANS FALSELY ACCUSED IN CLAN-FIGHT MURDERHindus opposed to pastor’s evangelistic efforts name him, three others.NEW DELHI, August 31 (Compass Direct News) – Hindus opposed to a pastor in a village in Madhya Pradesh, India have falsely charged him and three other Christians in the murder of a young man killed in a gang fight between two clans, according to area Christians. Pastor Kamlesh Tahed, 32, of Mehendi Kheda village, Jhabua district, told Compass he was not even in the village on Aug. 8, the day 22-year-old Roop Singh Baria was killed. Pastor Tahed, who spent 20 days in jail on false charges of “forcible conversion” in 2001 before a court declared him innocent, is in hiding. Three other Christians from his clan – Kasna Tahed, 25, Ramesh Tahed, 26, and Vasna Tahed, 36 – are in police custody, also charged in the murder of Baria, of nearby Negadia village, even though they were not present at the site of the melee either, Pastor Tahed said. Pastor Bahadur Baria of the same village’s opposing clan told Compass that in all previous conflicts – personal, religious or social – sympathizers of Hindu extremists falsely accuse area Christians as well as bait them into conflicts. Pastor Baria said what happened to Pastor Tahed also has happened to him; a member of the Tahed clan was murdered by a Baria clan gang, and his name appeared among those charged. Only after a costly court process was he exonerated from murder charges, he said. “This has not been once but every time something happens, the Christians are dragged into it,” he said.
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