Pastor and family shocked by son’s death in India

Pastor Sushil Kumar and his wife woke up at 3 a.m. on July 8 in their village in northern India, as usual, to pray. They emerged from their home 90 minutes later to find the body of their 22-year-old son hanging from the bamboo ceiling of a nearby animal pen.

Nilesh Kumar was tortured and strangled to death in Satpura village, Arwal district of Bihar state, said Pastor Kumar. A medical examination concluded that the assailants had broken his arms before strangling him. They later tied a cloth around his neck and hung his body to portray it as a suicide, the pastor said.

“Our hearts are overwhelmed with grief over the torture he endured before he breathed his last,” said Pastor Kumar.

Manohar Sharma, who is suspected of the murder along with accomplices, has been arrested and charged. He had fought with Nilesh Kumar two years earlier because he, a lower-caste Christian, dared to object to the higher-caste Hindu crossing his property where cow dung had been spread according to local custom, the pastor said.

After finding their son’s body, Pastor Kumar and his wife Ravita Devi cried and wailed so much that day that they lost consciousness by evening, a fellow pastor said.

“Their condition was so bad that we had to call an ambulance and send them to the district hospital,” said Pastor Pintoo Kumar, adding that their condition was so serious that a doctor decided to admit them to the hospital.

He and other Christians arranged a funeral service for the evening of July 8. The grieving parents were released from the hospital on July 10.

Nilesh Kumar was sleeping alone when he was attacked and killed, his father said. Because the family had no cell phone reception in their home, Nilesh Kumar slept on a porch at a distance from the house where there was reception.

The family last saw him at 8:00 p.m. on July 7 at dinner. The time of death was estimated to be around midnight.

Police registered a First Information Report for the murder of Sharma and accomplices, with any religious motive ruled out, although Pastor Kumar said anger over Nilesh Kumar’s faith was a factor. The family was the first to convert from Hinduism in the village 22 years ago.

Two years ago, Nilesh Kumar had objected to Sharma crossing their garden, which his mother had recently smeared with cow dung, the pastor said.

Sharma taunted him for being a lower caste and for accepting Christ, and reprimanded him for speaking so harshly to him, Pastor Kumar said. Since then, Sharma and his Hindu friends have been threatening the Kumar family, leading to Sadar police arresting and jailing Sharma on Pastor Kumar’s complaint that he regularly threatened to kill his son.

Sharma was released on bail after a month and the case was still pending, the pastor said. Since then, Sharma has not missed an opportunity to threaten Nilesh Kumar, even though the Christian believed his vengefulness had subsided, Pastor Kumar said.

“Nilesh had gotten used to it,” he said. “He grew up to be a responsible Christian. He had just returned from a youth camp and was very enthusiastic about it. We could never have imagined that Manohar, for such a trivial act, would kill our son two years later in revenge.”

According to Reverend Kumar, the entire village would have taken part in the quarrel two years ago if they were still Hindus. He also asked Sharma not to overreact.

“No one has intervened for us; our lives do not matter to Hindus,” he said with tears in his eyes.

His son faced contempt, exclusion and deliberate persecution from childhood because he was a Christian.

“The village boys would tease him, saying, ‘Hey hallelujah, come here,’” Pastor Kumar said, describing the opposition his entire family faced. “We became vulnerable targets. The villagers knew we were outnumbered; we had no one to stand by us.”

Pastor Kumar has farmland and cattle to support the family. There are four other Christian families in the village and they attend his church.

Nilesh Kumar also leaves behind two sisters, aged 12 and 17.

“But our lives will never be the same without Nilesh,” Kumar said, asking for prayers. “He left us far too early and we didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.”

India ranks 11th on Christian aid organization Open Doors’ 2024 World Watch List of countries where it is hardest to be a Christian. The country was ranked 31st in 2013, but its position deteriorated after Prime Minister Narendra Modi came to power.

The hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), towards non-Hindus has emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of the country to attack Christians since Modi came to power in May 2014, religious rights advocates say.