Christians in the eastern Indian state of West Bengal have reportedly faced mob attacks on churches, prayer meetings and homes since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) won state elections in May, and a new campaign is underway to combat fabricated claims of mass conversion.

The BJP’s win in West Bengal, with results declared on May 4, gave the party control of the state for the first time and ended 15 years of Trinamool Congress party rule. Critics linked the result to a revision of the electoral rolls that struck more than 9 million voters before the poll, raising questions about the integrity of the vote.

The worst day was last Sunday, with at least four separate attacks, Matters India reports.

A mob in Murshidabad district raided a Christian widow’s house and demanded she renounce her faith and hand over her land for a Hindu temple. In Bankura district, a group confiscated Bibles and held worshipers at a Protestant prayer service, while at Suvas Gram, a locality on the southern edge of the state capital Kolkata, attackers wrecked the altar and instruments of a Presbyterian congregation.

Hindus make up 71% of the state’s population, Muslims 27% and Christians 0.7%.

The trouble began a day earlier at Palbari, in the West Midnapore district, where men said to belong to Hindu outfits set upon women guests, Christian and Hindu alike, at a thanksgiving service for a newly married couple on July 4, according to Telegraph India. Officers allegedly looked on without acting, and Kotwali area police then arrested the pastor, the Rev. Anup Ghosh, accusing him of conducting conversion rites.

At Grace Church in the Faridpur locality of Katwa, in East Burdwan district, a mob wielding sticks beat the pastor and worshipers during Sunday prayers on July 5, then made off with cash, mobile phones, trophies and identity papers.

A demand for 200,000 Indian rupees (over $2,000) had reportedly been made to church officials the day before, and police allegedly did not act on an earlier complaint.

Another crowd pushed into a half-built church that same day at Buri Bot Tala area, in the South 24-Parganas district, threatening worshipers and destroying three rooftop crosses. Sonarpur area police recorded a complaint from a local Christian, Swapan Purkait, only after a church legal cell intervened. The charges include criminal trespass, mischief and criminal intimidation, but no arrests followed.

Residents told Telegraph India the attackers claimed to belong to the Hindu Jagran Manch, a body tied to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological parent of the BJP.

Three people were briefly detained and then let go allegedly under pressure from a Hindu nationalist outfit.

The Bangiya Christiya Pariseba (BCP), a united forum of Christian churches in eastern and northeastern India, announced a statewide campaign last Friday to counter fabricated online posts and false claims of mass conversion, according to the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern.

The campaign, called Memorandum Submission Fortnight, will run until July 19 and submit petitions to the chief minister, district magistrates and local officers.

The BCP said its schools, hospitals and welfare institutions had been portrayed as sites of forced conversion through doctored videos and online reels. It urged the state administration to enforce Article 25 of the Indian Constitution, which protects the right to profess, practice and spread one’s faith.

The BCP founder secretary, Herod Mullick, said that police followed a pattern of turning away complaints, freeing attackers on minor charges and jailing victims.

The BCP has sought impartial inquiries, the dropping of criminal cases against pastors and protection for churches and families. It plans to seek talks with the state’s chief minister, Suvendu Adhikari, who heads the home department in charge of the police.

“We cannot remain silent when falsehood is being circulated as fact,” BCP leaders told the press.

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