MARTYRED FOR CHRIST IN JHARKHAND, INDIA

Martyred for Christ in Jharkhand
Letare Horo (55), a native of Village Ganayor, Murhu Block, Khunti District of Jhadkhand State was a very sincere, dedicated hard working soul winning Evangelist of the JEL Church, Burju, for 5 years. The church was founded by foreign missionaries in the year 1874, with the motto "God is Love" written in Hindi on their foundation stones. The present Pastor of the church is Rev. Anand Mashiah Aind (44) who is also in charge of the other 36 JEL Churches in that area, which together have 11000 members from 250 believer families. For many years Pastor Anand Mashiah and Pastor Letare Horo worked together in that area and have brought many souls to Christ through their combined ministry and have planted many JEL Churches in that region.

They also worked together as Pastor and Evangelist for the past 5 years in Burju, which has about 200 worshipping families, mostly from the Mundari tribal background, who are mostly cultivators or agricultural labourers. The villagers of that locality and specially these tribal females also engage in manufacture and sale of country liquor. The Church is situated in a forested area, and many times wild animals such as elephants, leopards and bears arrive and disturb the locality. But as the driver of the taxi in which we traveled said, referring to the brutal cold-blooded murder of the innocent aged Evangelist by a person unknown to him, some times even human beings of the place behave as anti-socials.

The incident happened as below:

On 25th April 2008, few elephants appeared late in the evening, from the nearby forest, and entered the Church compound. The Pastors and staff were afraid and started praying for divine protection for two nights without sleep. The prayers were answered and the elephants which stayed there till the 27th morning, did no harm. Later, they went to a neighboring village and destroyed some houses there.

On Sunday, 27th April 2008, after the Church services in which Evangelist Horo, a good singer led the congregation with his sweet singing, he went visiting a number of believers in another village called Saga for prayer at 5 pm, returned at 9:30pm to his quarters and went to bed. He lived alone, as his wife and children lived in a village 40 km away. His closest neighbours are Emmanuel Heremz and his wife Asian, both JEL Church school teachers. At 11pm, Emmanuel woke up and went out of his house to attend a call of nature, when he saw somebody rush into his house. He quickly ran back to his house and found Durgun Mundu (28) from a nearby village called Dolda about 2 km away, who had earlier been his student in the school. Emmanuel asked why he had come at that time, and Durgun replied that some people were chasing him, so he rushed here to take shelter. Emmanuel looked outside and found nobody and everything peaceful. He thought at first that perhaps Durgun had encountered some problems in his village and had come to his house for shelter. He made him sit and asked whether he wanted to be prayed for. Durgun replied that he had come just for that, and requested him to call Evangelist Pastor Letare Horo to come and pray for him. So Emmanuel went and woke up Pastor Letare Horo and brought him to his home, where the pastor prayed for Durgun Mundu, in the presence of Emmanuel and his wife. During the prayer, he was quite stable and silent. After the prayer Pastor Horo asked him how he felt, and Durgun replied that he was feeling better than before. But suddenly Pastor marked some peculiar behavioral change in him and looked harder to see what he was trying to do. And suddenly he took an axe from behind his back and aimed two strong blows on Pastor Horo's forehead with it, causing his instant death on the spot.

The teacher couple were shocked and rushed out, called for help and all the people from the Church Compound and close by gathered at the spot. They found Durgan is still hammering Pastor's dead face mercilessly with the back side of a spade, which had been was lying in the teacher's house for garden work. All of them, dumbfounded at this mindless violence, soon overpowered Durgun, took away the weapons and tied him strongly with rope. Pastor Anand Mashiah Aind fainted with the shock of seeing his very good friend and colleague's mutilated face and his blood staining the place. He later revived and informed the Murhu Police Station at 12:30 and narrated the incident, specifically mentioning that they have caught and held the murderer in a closed house which is a major risk, and requested them to rush to their aid. Despite this the police arrived only at about 11 am. Press reporters of course arrived about 7 or 8 am. Meanwhile Durgun tried to escape from the hook of tight rope – he has been photographed and the photograph carried in the Newspaper. He also asked them to provide Khaini (a chewable tobacco). Nobody gave him that and at 4, when all the believers were guarding him, he confessed to them, "I have murdered an innocent man."

Police arrested Durgun and also took the dead body of Pastor Letare Horo for post mortem after their formal local investigation and handed over the same to the bereaved family members at about 2 pm. They carried his body to his native village at Ganayor and buried him there at 9pm on 28th April. The compound is deserted, as everyone has left the Church Campus out of fear after this incident. During GCIC's enquiries, it emerged that found that Durgun is from a Hindu dominated village called Dolda which is just 1 & ½ Kms away from Burju Church. The Sarpanch and all other village leaders are Bajrangis and activists of Sangh Parivar. They have enforced an ordination that nobody of their village shall accept Christianity, on pain of severely penalty and dire consequences.

But the murderer Durgun Mundu's cousin Mr. Ghanshyam Mundu (26) without bothering about his village committee's decisions, accepted Christ as his personal Savior through the pasotr's ministry, and testified to his faith on Good Friday 2007. Ghanshyam subsequently married a Christian girl but continued to stay in his own village with his own family. Villagers started persecuting this newly married couple due to their faith. They are still in the midst of the persecution in their village and living with much difficulty.

Another incident of torture of a Fresher Bible College student came to light. Yakub Mundu(26) doing his B.Th. who had come there during last May for his practical field training to these Pastors of Burju JEL Church, was very badly beaten by the Dolda villagers for his work of gospel tract distribution in their area, but at that time they had not filed any complaints at the Police station.

Subsequently, this May, Pastor Letare Horo was brutally murdered by Durgun Mundu.

Pastor Letare Horo and his wife Gloria had two sons and two daughters out of which the elder daughter is married, the eldest Son Bijoy is a Tempo(Auto Rickshaw)Driver; the 2nd son died in a road accident with a tractor at the age of 18, and his last daughter Jenith Seteng is now in final year degree course in the college. All of them along are staying in their native village at Ganayor which is 40 Kms from Burju JEL Church. Pastor Letare Horo lived alone at Burju JEL Church premises in quarters provided by the Church. Mrs. Gloria Horo had earlier worked as an Anganwadi worker.