MUSLIM EXTREMISTS SUSPECTED IN DEATH OF CHRISTIAN WORKER

September 28 MPBS24/7 REPORT from CDN – Family members of a Christian worker who was found dead in a Muslim area in Jharkhand state a day after the Islamic Eid festival said they suspect he may have been murdered by local residents. The body of Shravan Kumar, who had worked with the Gospel Echoing Missionary Society, was found lying in a well near the Idgah Mosque in Garhwa town in the wee hours of Sept. 13, a close relative of the deceased told Compass by phone. Kumar, 31, lived in Pratapgarh district in neighboring Uttar Pradesh state. He left for Garhwa, 65 kilometers (40 miles) away, saying he wanted to see a colleague there on Sept. 10, but he never arrived. Local youths who pulled Kumar’s body from the well the morning of Sept. 13 informed the family member that they noticed injuries on his face and around his neck. Police were immediately informed, but they did not arrive until 10 p.m. “Kumar had lived in a rented house in Garhwa a few years ago, and on the morning of Sept. 12 he visited his old landlord and mentioned that he planned to preach in the Idgah Mosque area,” said the relative, adding that Kumar’s family suspected “that he preached to the Muslims on the Eid festival, and as a result he was killed and thrown in the well.” But police, asserting that there was no injury mark on the body, said that Kumar was not murdered. The religious atmosphere was tense at that time of Kumar’s death; on Sept. 13, Muslim mobs burned a Christian school and a church in the Muslim-majority Kashmir region in Jammu and Kashmir.