According to an article dated 18 May 2017 in UCA News, 260 incidents against Christians in India were recorded by
Persecution Relief in the first five months of 2017. This rise in attacks by radical Hindus has been noted by other groups as well. Already on 16 August 2016, the
Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI) drew the following conclusion: "It is worth noting that while in 2014 and 2015, 147 and 177 cases of targeted violence were documented respectively, in 2016 their numbers have already reached 133 in the first six months." EFI also provided an explanation for this: "An ominous and all-permeating impunity and occasional complicity of the administrative and police personnel mark the spurt in violence against Christians in the states of Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which top the list of hate crimes against Christian in India in the first half of 2016."
Rolf Zeegers, persecution analyst at World Watch Research, concludes: "Prime Minister Narendra Modi from the Bharatiya Janata Party (the political wing of a radical Hindu movement) has now completed three years in power, holding office since May 2014. A clear trend of rising violence against religious minorities has become apparent; indeed India has one of the highest scores for violent incidents against Christians in the Open Doors
World Watch List 2017. Modi still has two years to go before (in all probability) being re-elected, which means his current policy of "˜looking the other way" is likely to continue for the next few years. For Christians in India this unfortunately means that the number of attacks against them is unlikely to decrease. They definitely need our prayer."
