Christians harass Hindu priest to abandon temple and convert [ Andhra Pradesh , India ]

[ Reported as seen ]

In Andhra Pradesh, a Hindu priest was forced to post to narrate his part of a story, in which he was being harassed by Christian villagers to convert and abandon the temple. He also lamented that the Christians have lodged false cases against him.

“Jai Sri ram! My name is Addepalli Raghavulu and I come from Bapatla district, Nagaram Mandal, Sajjalavaripalem village, SC colony, Andhra Pradesh. With the help of Tirumala Tirupathi Devasthanam (TTD), we set up the Rama temple in our Madigapalle.

In our village, people who converted to Christianity from our community are pressuring us to get rid of the Rama temple and not to follow Hindu Dharma in Madigapalle and pressuring me to convert to Christianity. Since I said no to conversion, they filed false cases claiming that I had badmouthed women from the Christian community, and threatened to open a rowdy sheet against me through Nagaram Mandal SI.

I am saddened by the police threatening me to convert and become one of them by saying since most of them are on one side, and I cannot do anything by staying on the other. So, I request all Hindus to save the Sri Kodanda Rama temple in Sajjavaripalem from demolition and pujaris like me who are constantly working for Hindu Dharma need blessings and help from the leaders of our Hindu organizations.

Dear Hindus, I am saddened and troubled a lot by the 2-3 FIRs that were filed against me, and they are trying to file one more FIR. Since I am the only Hindu, if they file these cases, there will not be any Hindu and pujari for this temple and it can be taken over and converted into a Church by the Christians. I hereby request you to save this temple, Hindu Dharma, me, and my family. I hope I can get the support of Hindus. Jai Sri Ram! Jai Hind!”

He further said, “You alone won’t be able to do anything. So just listen to them and convert.” The priest intends on stopping the temple from getting demolished.

The temple has a majority of converted Christians who are on the lookout to convert the Hindus.

A media report confirmed the priest’s words, out of 500 families in the village, only 3 Hindu families remain, including the priest’s. A couple of cases have also been lodged against the priest, as he claims in the video.

It further says that Baptla district was formed in April 2022. It has been combined with parts of former Guntur and Prakasam districts. It is part of coastal Andhra, which has seen heavy evangelical missionary activity since YSR came into power in 2004.

Presently, YSR’s jon, CM Jagan Reddy is accused of covertly assisting the aggressive, and often predatory, Christian proselytization across Andhra with undeclared state support. This proselytization almost always involves denigration of Hindu Dharma as a ‘false religion’, and abuse of Hindu murtis and deities as ‘false gods’, ‘stone’, ‘satan’ etc.