Reiterates call to designate India as a 'Country of Particular Concern' over rising attacks on minorities: USCIRF

 Reiterates call to designate India as a 'Country of Particular Concern' over rising attacks on minorities:

USCIRF

New Delhi, February 7 (Manpreet Singh Khalsa):- The United States Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) has urged the US government to urge Indian authorities to "hold perpetrators of violence accountable", highlighting the violent attacks by Hindu nationalist mobs targeting Christians in the country, saying such attacks further justify its call to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC). The update comes a few months after the 2025 annual report, in which the USCIRF had recommended for the sixth time that the US State Department designate India as a Country of Particular Concern for engaging in systematic, ongoing and serious religious freedom violations. In an India-specific update issued on February 6, the USCIRF, a bipartisan US Congress-backed organization, cited the recent attack on a priest in Odisha, who was allegedly attacked by a mob and paraded through the streets with a necklace of shoes around his neck on suspicion of forced conversion. The USCIRF said such attacks “further justify” its call to designate India as a Country of Particular Concern (CPC). USCIRF Chairperson Vicky Hartzler said, “January alone has seen a spate of horrific attacks against Christians. We are particularly concerned about reports of a Hindu mob in Odisha beating up Pastor Bipin Bihari Nayak while he was offering Sunday prayers inside a house. The mob accused him of forcibly converting, dragged him outside and forced him to eat cow dung. Such attacks further justify the USCIRF’s call for the US State Department to designate India as a CPC. In addition to the January attack on Pastor Naik, a Hindu nationalist mob demolished the homes of four Christian families in Maharashtra after they refused to renounce their faith. That same month, Hindu nationalists attacked a minibus carrying evangelical Christians in Andhra Pradesh, setting the vehicle on fire and beating the passengers with cricket bats and stones. It added that in February, another Hindu mob in Chhattisgarh torched half a dozen Muslim homes after accusing a man of desecrating a Hindu temple. In November, the USCIRF said in an India-specific update that ties between the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) were enabling “biased” laws. It cited the case of Umar Khalid, who has been detained since 2020 for leading peaceful protests opposing the religiously discriminatory CAA, as an example of religious minorities spending years in prison without trial.

The State Department has not yet acted on the recommendation. The State Department had dismissed the report and claimed that the US body was continuing its “pattern of issuing biased and politically motivated assessments.”