Pastor Bahadur Singh stands beside a cow shed in a barren land. His hand gestures towards the site where his house once stood, and he moves under the cow shed. “This is where we were doing our prayers when they came to attack us”. In 2002, a mob came to Bahadur Singh’s house when he and others were attending their Sunday prayer, accusing him of converting tribals to Christianity. The mob vandalised his house and the prayer hall to rubble. He continued, “They attacked us, destroyed my house completely and then we were arrested on charges of forcible conversion.”When we visited him, 23 years since the incident, the broken foundations of his house were still visible.Members of the People’s Tribunal, constituted by Karwan-e-Mohabbat and the Collective of Concerned Citizens, to investigate anti-Christian discrimination and violence in India, travelled to Chhattisgarh and Odisha in April and May. We heard incidents dating back 30 years as well as incidents that happened just a few months before our visit. Yet all these stories have remained unheard or have gone unreported by mainstream media.As an extension to the People’s Tribunal a group associated with Karwan-e-Mohabbat visited the tribal areas of Madhya Pradesh (MP) in May, 2026. We recorded the testimonies of victims of violence, met locals and community leaders to understand the issue in greater depth. This video documentary is the result.MP has the largest tribal population in India, who are also major socio-economic contributors to the state. The anti-Christian violence in MP is largely against Christians from tribal communities. We spoke to around 25 victims across the state from the districts of Jhabua, Burhanpur, Khandwa, Alirajpur, Bhopal, and Mhow. Their stories were deeply disturbing and concerning.After Odisha, Madhya Pradesh was the second state to bring an anti-conversion Freedom of Religion Act, in 1968 – “an Act to provide for prohibition of conversion from one religion to another by the use of force or allurement or by fraudulent means and for matters incidental thereto.” Hindutva-associated organisations like Vishwa Hindu Parishad allege that tribal Christians are forcibly converted to Christianity. Even if there is no evidence to support these allegations, many are arrested and jailed under the act.Baliram, a pastor from Burhanpur told us repeatedly, “We don’t belong to Hindu Dharm or any religion, so how can it even be considered a conversion?”On June 21, 2025, around 200 people surrounded Baliram’s house during a prayer meeting. Some believers from a nearby village had brought in a sick villager for prayers for his recovery. A set of villagers informed Bajrang Dal members that a conversion was afoot. The mob undressed and paraded four of the congregation in their underwear and made them bow to a Hindu temple deity. Baliram had managed to escape.In another incident, during which police was present, Vilas Barela, a tribal Christian was pressured to say that his religion was Hinduism. Publicly accessible videos of the incident show little intervention from police. Just two days after he was released from jail following a recent incident involving violent intimidation by Bajrang Dal members, we met Raoji Damor and his wife Sunita Damor. The first incident involved the son of the Sarpanch of the village who was associated with Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). In July, 2025 Raoji was engaged in Sunday prayers at a time when Jatar – a festival in the village during which cows are taken to a temple – was being celebrated. He was threatened and told, “If you want to stay in the village you have to stop Sunday prayers, participate in Jatar and come to the temple”. Later, again in December, he was physically assaulted by Bajrang Dal men after they forced him to chant ‘Jai Shri Ram’.The same month, on December 21, 2025, Ramesh Vasunia, a pastor who has been practicing Christianity for 20 years, was brutally attacked while participating in a Christmas carol singing event. He was severely injured and kept under observation in the ICU. After he was discharged, he was arrested under the state’s anti-conversion law.In Gandhi Nagar, Bhopal, eight women were arrested and taken to jail by the police along with their children, again on allegations of ‘forced conversion’. The police arrived with Bajrang Dal members and took them to the police station, the victims said. Though they were granted bail after three days, they continue to face threats and boycotts within their village and the system is not reliable enough for them to seek protection.Anita, one of the women who was arrested said, “Whenever they saw us they attacked. There had been three or four such attacks before. During festivals like Holi or Dussehra they drag us to panchayats…”.“They told us we no longer had any relationship with them, they ostracised us from the village.” her husband Bikan Lal added. Kausalya, another woman who was arrested, had to face harassment from her husband too.Incitement and lack of actionWe travelled into a vast stretch of dry land to meet Jabbar Khan, who now lives in hiding out of fear, in one of two rented houses built on a large vacant plot. He lives there with his wife, daughter and son, almost like prisoners. In 1992, he converted to Christianity from Islam and became a pastor later. Jabbar Khan’s is the only incident which we covered where bulldozer action was led by the state, perhaps because of his Muslim identity. In September 2025 his house was demolished days after he and his wife were accused under the anti-conversion law. Despite the Madhya Pradesh high court’s directive to follow Supreme Court guidelines on demolitions, authorities bulldozed the second floor while Khan was in jail, violating the guidelines. Scroll.in, in a report, quoted the town’s municipal chief justifying the demolition “because Khan’s family held conversion activities in the house.”After speaking to the victims, we identified patterns of persecution against tribal Christians. Physical assaults, public humiliation, social boycotts, vandalisation of places of worship followed arrests under the anti-conversion laws.The attacks have often occurred following public calls for violence and social boycotts against Christians at public events organised by leaders of groups such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP). Arun Ohri who is one of the victims from Jabhua noted that before one such attack, there was a public event conducted by Bajrang Dal where a person came and said, “If you see any converted Christians, hit their head with batons”. Ohri observed how future attacks would probably have stopped if a first information report had been filed against those who were inciting violence like this.The role of such organisations in shaping public sentiment against Christians can’t be overstated. Social boycott within families and villages, which many suffer from, appears to be a consequence of these provocations, forcing many tribal Christians to flee their own homes, leaving families behind. Often they are denied basic facilities such as access to water, excluded from employment opportunities, and denied ration supplies, very often affecting the education of their children.Another prevalent accusation against pastors is that they convert people by offering them money. Baliram, from Burhanpur, questions this claim: “When I don’t earn enough to pay for my children’s education, how am I supposed to convert people by offering them money?”After detentions in police stations and jails, tribal Christians who are charged with criminal offences face a further challenge – to fight long legal battles. The violence against Christians in MP has a history of at least 30 years, but there has been a hike in such incidents since the BJP came in power. According to data from the United Christian Forum, there were 127 incidents of intimidation and harassment in Madhya Pradesh in 2024 and 2025. There were 86 cases involving restrictions on religious gatherings, and 25 cases of physical assault.Safa KT is a multimedia producer associated with Kaarwan e Mohabbat.