India– According to Morning Star News, a 12-year-old Christian boy and his brother in Uttar Pradesh received a death threat at late hours of the night on June 18 from a group of radical Hindu nationalists led by his uncle. The threats started after the boys’ family refused to renounce their Christian faith.

“It was past 11’o clock at night when we heard them banging on the door and shouting,” the Christian boy told Morning Star News. “Five men, along with my uncle, were standing at the door, issuing threats that they would murder my brother and me.”

The boys’ father, Anil James, works 116 miles away in Delhi. The COVID-19 lockdown has kept him from returning home, leaving the family vulnerable to attack. The boys’ terrified mother, Molly James, told her two sons to run to the police station while she locked the doors and would catch up with them later.

“My brother and sister have portrayed me as a bad woman in this Hindu neighborhood for accepting Christianity,” Molly James told Morning Star News. “They have been trying to expel my family from the area for the past three years.”

After Molly and her sons arrived at the police station, officers made sure they returned to their home safely.

The next day, police went to investigate the issue. Molly’s brother and sister told the police that the death threats were actually a property dispute in an attempt to avoid police involvement. Later that day, Molly’s brother threatened her again, saying he would kill her and her two children.

Prior to the June 18 incident, Molly’s siblings demanded she resume Hindu rituals and stop worshipping Christ to continue living in her home. They also have objected to her oldest son rehearsing Christian worship music on his guitar.

“Since the coronavirus pandemic started spreading, he is doing it all the more to scare us,” Molly told Morning Star News of her brother. “He also tells the neighbors and his friends that we belong to the lower class and that Christianity is the religion of lower castes and classes. The neighbors also look down on my children, calling them lower class, so that it affects them mentally. They had been very outspoken about their faith at school and among their friends. I’m afraid that witnessing this amount of violence and aggression, and their fear, would affect them.”

Sources:persecution