INDIA: Pastor Murdered and Mutilated

Before I tell you how this precious pastor in India was murdered for his faith, I wanted to share a scripture with you from Revelation 6:9 because it specifically speaks of the martyrs who die for their testimony in Jesus.

"When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained..."

The testimony they maintained...please think about that today.

Pastor Prem Kumar (on the right with the mustache) of Nizamabad’s CSI Church in Andhra Pradesh, India, was murdered on June 8th with the same brutality typical of earlier radical Hindu attacks. According to the Global Council of Indian Christians, the 67-year-old pastor’s body was found mutilated with his head crushed, in the hills near Rampart in Kotagiri Mandal of Nizamudeen district. Kumar’s body was so disfigured that Kotagiri sub-inspector, Ch. Anjaneyulu had to identify his remains from a description of his clothes.

Family members report that several people planned to pick Kumar up in the city of Bodhan after inviting him to pray over a newly constructed church in Kotagiri on the eve of its opening. When Kumar arrived at the meeting place, unidentified men ushered him onto their two-wheeler and drove off. Kumar called his family on his cell phone, telling them he was picked up by people he was not familiar with?not those who had invited him. Sensing danger, he asked his family to call him every 15 minutes, but after an hour-and-a-half, the connection was lost.

Pastor Kumar’s ministry extended beyond his church in Nizamabad. He also taught at prayer gatherings, corner meetings and conventions. Since 2004, when the secular Congress Party won India’s national election over the Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), attacks by militant Hindu groups such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sang (RSS), Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) have increased.