By Nile Hosni —
As a 13-year-old swept up in mob rage over “forced conversions” in India, Chengu Hansdah helped pour gasoline over the car of the foreign missionary as he slept with his two sons inside in Manoharpur village in 1999. Graham Staines, his 10-year-old and his 6-year-old were burned alive.
Now, after serving a 9-year sentence, Chengu Hansdah has himself converted to Christianity.
“Christianity gave me peace,” he said. Chengu, through the intervening 26 years, had lost his wife and two sisters. Emotionally broken, he searched for solace and for truth. He found it in Jesus. He says no one forced him to convert.
As a youth, Chengu belonged to the hardline Hindu organization Bajrang Dal, the youth wing of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) that pushes for Hinduism, particularly in India. They anger that Christianity is making inroads on Hindu-born Indians.
The VHP’s political wing is the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the nationalist party to which the current Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs. That is the political party that is responsible for penalizing evangelism and jailing Christians under the anti-conversion laws.
Chengu was the youngest in the lynch mob to burn Staines and his sons.
Incredibly, Staines’ widow stayed in India and continued to minister.
“We are deeply shocked and hurt,” said Gladys Staines in 1999. “I am deeply saddened. And still my prayer and my desire is that these people who took my husband’s life will be touched by that same love so that they will never do this to another person.”
Gladys and her daughter, Esther, continued working in India, carrying out her husband’s dream to establish a leprosy clinic. It turned into a full-fledge hospital: the Graham Staines Memorial Hospital was unveiled in 2004. Gladys stayed in Odisha, India, for 23 years.
Sources: Impact Evangelism, Catholic Connect, others.
