Vulnerable Hindus targeted for Christian conversion under guise of ‘healing’ in Balurghat, West Bengal
Balurghat, West Bengal, India 
12 September, 2026
Case Summary
In Balurghat, West Bengal, vulnerable Hindus were targeted for conversion to Christianity on the pretext of “healing” by Christian missionaries. The matter came to light after a post by the X account HinduVoice_in went viral on social media. The post shared videos showing a large gathering of Hindu men and women at the location. It stated that Christian missionaries were aggressively converting Hindus by luring them through faith-healing programmes. Following this, members of the Bajrang Dal reached the village and confronted the missionaries over the conversion activities. Video footage showed a gathering of villagers and protesters confronting police personnel at the location, with heated discussions taking place as people objected to the activities being conducted there. The police subsequently intervened and detained the Christian missionaries, three men and a woman. The incident highlighted the use of healing programmes as a means of reaching Hindu communities and conducting Christian conversion activities among them. In the post, a video showed police personnel confronting the missionaries over their activities. One police officer was seen questioning a missionary about what he was doing at the gathering. When the missionary replied that he was healing people, the officer questioned how he could heal people and asked whether he was a scientist who could perform such healing.
Why it is Hate Crime ?
This case has been added to the tracker under the primary category of: Predatory Proselytisation. Within this, the sub-category selected is: Conversion/ attempts to convert by inducement. Predatory Proselytisation is not just limited to threat, harassment, force and violence, but it also has contours of stealth. In several cases, the Hindu victim is exploited to convert, with non-Hindus taking advantage of their poverty. In such cases, the Hindu victim who is suffering financially is offered monetary benefits, including lucrative offers for jobs, health treatment, education, etc., to induce the victim to change his/her religion. In such cases, the religious identity of the victim and the aim to disenfranchise him from his faith form the heart of the crime. Also, taking advantage of and exploiting an individual’s economic vulnerabilities is widely acknowledged as exploitation, and its forms are often penalised by law. Such cases therefore are considered religiously motivated hate crimes since the victim’s religious identity forms the very heart of the crime itself. This case was included in the Tracker because it reflected predatory proselytisation directed at vulnerable Hindus through the promise or claim of healing. The concern was not the expression of Christian belief, but the use of a person's vulnerability and hope for relief to influence their religious choice. In this case, the healing programme provided a means for the missionaries to reach vulnerable Hindus and influence their religious choices. By presenting the activity as healing while using it to pursue conversion to Christianity, the missionaries linked the hope of relief with acceptance of another faith. The vulnerability of those seeking healing therefore became the point through which the conversion effort was advanced. The method mattered because the healing activity served as a means to pursue religious conversion rather than an end in itself. If healing had genuinely been the primary objective, a person would not have needed to accept Christianity to receive or benefit from it. Presenting conversion within a programme held out as healing therefore created a false premise for vulnerable Hindus, using their expectation of relief to draw them towards another faith. The concern was not simply that healing was offered, but that the claim of healing was used to make conversion appear connected to receiving its supposed benefits. The targeting of Hindus gave the conduct a direct religious dimension. Their Hindu identity was the starting point of the conversion effort, with the intended outcome being a shift from their existing faith to Christianity. This treated adherence to Hinduism as something to be replaced rather than a faith another religion could engage with through open religious dialogue. Such predatory conversion efforts stem from Abrahamic doctrines like Christianity that view non-believers with disdain until they convert, fostering contempt that manifests in targeted crimes against Hindus. Therefore, this case has been added to the Hinduphobia Tracker's hate crime database. Disclaimer: The Hinduphobia Tracker records incidents based on when an event occurred or when the victim's ordeal began. None of the media sources covering this case has specified the exact date the incident occurred. Therefore, for documentation purposes, we recorded the date as when the incident was reported in the media: 13 September 2026. In this case, the perpetrator count was recorded as 4 (four) based on the video, which showed the police detaining three men and one woman. This count is an estimate for documentation purposes only and does not represent the actual number of perpetrators, which may have been higher.
Case Status
Arrested
Perpetrators Details
Perpetrators
Christian Extremists
Perpetrators Range
From 2 To 5
Perpetrators Gender
both
Sources 
