Members of the Christian community on Sunday staged a protest at Delhi’s Jantar Mantar against the attack on churches in different parts of the country, PTI reported.

Members of about 100 churches and Christian organisations took part in the protest.

“We are being accused of forcibly converting people to Christianity,” said Steven, a resident of Uttar Pradesh. “Churches are being attacked, our people are being beaten up and arrested. The community members are living in a constant state of panic.”

The protest comes six days after a church in Madhya Pradesh’s Narmadapuram district was vandalised and torched.

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Prior to that, a mob had vandalised a church and attacked police officials in Chhattisgarh’s Narayanpur district on January 2. Five persons, including a Bharatiya Janata Party leader, were arrested.

In December, a notice was issued to officials of a Christian institute and a bishop, asking them to explain their roles in an alleged unlawful religious conversion case in Uttar Pradesh’s Fatehpur district. It was based on a complaint filed by a Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader.

On Sunday, members of the community said that they will send a memorandum to President Droupadi Murmu, urging her to form a National Redressal Commission headed by a retired Supreme Court judge to address the issues of “targeted violence” against Christians, reported The Hindu.

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In the memorandum, the community said that the states of Uttar Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Karnataka and Jharkhand were of particular concern.

“Continued waves of vile hate speech and targeted violence have buffeted the Christian community in recent years, and in particular in 2022-23,” the memorandum said. “The violence seems to have reached a crescendo in January and February 2023.”

The United Christian Forum, a human rights groups based in Delhi, last year recorded 598 incidents of violence against Christians in 21 states, the community said in a statement.