An Indian man who had organised the screening of a Christian movie in the Kodaila area of Jamalpur village, Siwan District, was besieged by an angry mob demanding his death [1].
Immanuel Tirkey and about 100 villagers were watching the film when a man interrupted the screening repeatedly, asking that the volume be lowered.
The man eventually left, but as the villagers were gathering their belongings to depart after the screening, at least 15 Hindu villagers arrived with swords, bamboo poles and wooden sticks. The family that had hosted the movie night immediately rushed Tirkey and the other four Christian organizers of the screening into their house and locked the doors.
“The batch of Hindu villagers abused them in filthy language, scattered the congregation and besieged the house,” Tirkey said. “It was midnight, and soon a mob of 250 angry, upper-caste Hindus showed up with lathis [heavy sticks bound with iron] and steel rods.”
Pelting the house with stones and vandalizing a motorbike and a van, they banged on the doors and badgered Anandi’s family to hand the Christians over to them, Tirkey said. He and the other four Christian organizers repeatedly requested that the family let them go outside, but they refused, saying they would face whatever came rather than turn them over to the mob, he said.
“They were shouting at the family that they are supporting in converting Hindus to a foreign faith, and that we must be killed – ‘Release them to us. We will see their end,’ they kept shouting,” Tirkey said.