Christian families across parts of central and eastern India face growing hostility during burial rites, with funerals turning into sites of mob pressure, forced exhumations, and coercion, the United Christian Forum said on Dec. 19.
The organisation flagged recent incidents in Chhattisgarh, Odisha, and Jharkhand, warning of a recurring pattern where burial of tribal and Dalit Christians faces obstruction and violence. According to UCF, such disputes have increased sharply, with 23 burial related incidents recorded in 2025 so far. Nineteen occurred in Chhattisgarh, two in Jharkhand, and one each in Odisha and West Bengal. Around 40 similar cases were reported in 2024.
UCF cited an incident from Dec. 15 in Chhattisgarh’s Kanker district, where villagers objected to the burial of the father of an elected sarpanch on family land, invoking local deity claims and demanding exhumation. The forum linked this case to earlier incidents in the same region, including the 2022 exhumation of an elderly Christian woman after administrative orders.
Several cases involve pressure to abandon Christianity. In Chhattisgarh and Odisha, families reported being denied burial unless they renounced their faith. In one Odisha case, relatives were assaulted and later forced to exhume a body, following which the family fled the village. In Narayanpur district, a 13-year-old girl was buried nearly 10kms away after villagers blocked rites in her village.