In the central Indian state of Chhattisgarh, Christians are finding that persecution follows them even to the grave. According to a report published today by The Independent, Christian families in the region are being denied the right to bury their dead in their own village graveyards — and in some cases, grieving relatives are being forced to dig up the bodies of their loved ones and carry them away.

The Independent tells the story of Simla Thappa, 22, whose father Patiram Thappa, a 50-year-old farmer, died in a hospital on August 10, 2023. The family had converted to Christianity in 2016. After they buried Patiram in their village of Iradah in Kanker district, a crowd of 200 to 250 villagers demanded that the body be exhumed, The Independent reports. Under threat, the family was forced to move his body to the Dudh river bank 15 kilometers away — and, according to the report, police would not even allow the burial to take place in Kanker's Christian cemetery.

The Thappa family's ordeal is not an isolated one. The Chhattisgarh Association for Justice and Equality has brought a case before India's Supreme Court citing more than 140 families who have been blocked from burying their dead in their villages, according to the report. A village council resolution from 2024 is said to prohibit non-Hindu burials on village land.

The case involves allegations that police have misused a 2025 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Ramesh Baghel — whose father, a pastor, was denied burial in his village for three weeks — to deny Christian families dignified burials. The petitioners claim police are playing what they describe as a "communal role" and that some 50 pastors have been arrested for performing Christian last rites. These are allegations reported by The Independent; The Independent says it contacted Chhattisgarh authorities for comment and received no response.

In February 2026, India's Supreme Court issued an interim order barring any further exhumations while the petition is resolved, the report states. Yet the pressure continues: in July 2026, villagers in Dhekuna reportedly demanded the exhumation of a Christian convert's body.

The reporting places this crisis within a wider pattern. India Hate Lab, a research organization, documented more than 1,300 in-person hate-speech events against religious minorities in India in 2025, with over 160 of those directed at Christians, according to the report. Christians make up about 2.3 percent of India's population, per the 2011 census, in a country where nearly 80 percent of people identify as Hindu.

One voice quoted in the report, Degree Prasad Chouhan of the Chhattisgarh Association for Justice and Equality, describes Christians being expelled from village communities and even having ancestral graves disturbed. A related case earlier this year, reported by Christian outlets, saw a grieving Christian family told they could only bury their loved one if they first returned to Hinduism — a demand they faced as the body lay waiting in a hospital mortuary.

Believers in the free world can do what the persecuted cannot always do for themselves: lift them up in prayer, and speak plainly about what is happening to them. As The Independent's reporting makes clear, this is not only about the living. When a family cannot lay its father to rest in peace, something is broken — and the church worldwide should not look away.