Angry Hindu youths beat three American missionaries and tried to kidnap one as they held a bible studies class in Bombay, police said on Monday.
About 30 or 40 men attacked the three, part of a group of eight, on Saturday night because they thought the missionaries were trying to convert Hindus in the Indian financial capital.
The three were treated for bruises and cuts at a hospital but were not seriously injured, police said.
“While this kind of attack is rare in Bombay, the police must take serious action against those responsible and send a clear message that religious intolerance will not be accepted in India,” Bombay Catholic Sabha president Dolphy D’Souza said.
Christians are often accused of “forcibly” converting poor and uneducated low-caste Hindus by bribing them with money and gifts, a charge missionaries deny. Some states have outlawed forcible conversions.
Christians account for about two percent of India’s more than one billion people. Religious conflicts more commonly pit Muslims — about 13 percent of the population — against Hindus, who make up about 80 percent.
In 1999, a Hindu mob burned alive an Australian missionary and his two young sons in Orissa state. Last month a court reduced the ringleader’s sentence from death to life in jail.
