The ceremony was in honor of the god Ganesh. On the flyer was the story of two people recovered from serious illnesses thanks to the conversion to Christianity. Sajan K George: "Healing stories give a wrong message, but the girls did not do anything illegal".
Mumbai (AsiaNews) - Two Evangelical Christian girls were removed from a Hindu festival because they distributed leaflets proclaiming Jesus Christ as the only true God. The event took place on September 17 in the Chembur area of Mumbai. On that day, the festival celebrated the feast of Ganesh, the Hindu god with an elephant's head. Sajan K George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), defends the young girls: "They were just distributing flyers to anyone who wanted them. No one was forced to take them ".
The young girls were removed and accused of proselytizing a Hindu religious event. The leaflets told the story of two people who were reportedly cured of serious illness (from a brain tumor and the AIDS virus) after embracing the Christian faith. The booklet said that the healing took place because Christianity is the only true way to achieve peace, freedom and a healthy life.
A local resident complains that the evangelical Christians "refused to move even after the police had asked them to do so. We started to protest and then eventually they left. " Sajan K George recalls that "in secular India, religious freedom is a constitutional guarantee. The two young people wanted to spread the Good News freely and without coercion with anyone willing to listen ".
The Christian leader reports that on the leaflet appeared and the inscription "Jesus Christ died on the cross for [the good] of humanity and witnessed the liberation from all suffering" and a passage from the Gospel of John (3, 16): " In fact, God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not die, but have eternal life ". As for the story of the alleged healings from serious illnesses, he warns that "the flyer gave a wrong message of the Christian faith. But girls did nothing illegal or forbidden anyway. "