A fact-finding team of the opposition Mamata AITC on Sunday alleged that it found during visits to various parts of West Bengal that mobs vandalised churches, denied Christians burial rights and disturbed their prayers after the BJP came to power in the state in May.
The party's Rajya Sabha MP Sagarika Ghose who headed the three-member team shared on X photographs of their visits to Christian establishments and educational institutions in Kolkata, North 24 Parganas and Paschim Medinipur districts.
The team made the tours on the instructions of party supremo Mamata Banerjee to listen to the alleged victims and "to offer what assistance we can to Christian communities increasingly fearful and anxious," Ghose said.
The panel also comprised lawyer Sirsanya Bandopadhyay, son of Lok Sabha MP and lawyer Kalyan Bandyopadhyay, and Maria Fernandes.
The team found that "1) Christians are being threatened & attacked if they don't 'return' to Hinduism 2) Christians are being denied burial rights 3) Christians are being denied civic rights like developing their own property or accessing irrigation for crops," she said.
Besides, the MP alleged that Christian congregations are being intimidated by loud music just outside prayer meetings and churches are being vandalised by mobs.
The Archbishop of Kolkata "spoke to us with deep alarm about the increasing attacks on Christians and on democracy and humane values in general," she posted on X.
In the Auxilium Convent at Simultala in Barasat in North 24 Parganas district, "The sisters described how an aggressive mob threatened them over construction which is entirely legal, on their own land. The nuns informed us about how in Jalalkhali, Krishnagar, a Christian congregation was attacked and a church was vandalised," Ghose said.
Nuns and worshippers should not have to live in fear, the Mamata AITC Deputy leader in Rajya Sabha said.
In Christ the King Church at Balichak in Paschim Medinipur district, devotees told the team that a Christian person's body had been forcibly exhumed and cremated in Moninathpur village, Ghose claimed.
She alleged that members of the Christian community are being denied water supply and access to graveyards.
Religious tensions are higher than ever before in West Bengal, and not even the dead are left in peace, the former journalist alleged.
"This is Bengal, the land of pluralism, and we will NOT let it be poisoned by religious hatred. The world watched when @SecRubio (US Secretary of State Marco Rubio) visited the Missionaries of Charity in May in Kolkata. The world must watch now," Ghose's post read.
The fact-finding team also visited Bamanpukur in North 24 Parganas district.
"In Divine Mercy Church. A self-styled VHP activist, Swami Shivananda, threatened the parish priest and pastors with an ultimatum: make your flock 'return' to Hinduism, or else. Aggression and coercive tactics designed to spread fear," she said.
"The courageous priest, Father Pradeep Dari, says Christians and Hindus have always lived in peace, but the law-abiding residents of the Christian village are now fearful," the Mamata AITC MP said.
Ghosh also shared a post by Sirsanya Bandopadhyay, which claimed that since the change of political regime on May 4, not only Hindus and Muslims have faced attacks and persecution, but there has been a systematic and well-planned attack on the Christian community as well.
"…The common exasperation was that we are not being allowed to profess and practice our religion by Hindu outfits in the name of Parishads and Manchs," said Bandyopadhyay who had unsuccessfully contested the Srirampore assembly seat in the 2026 polls.
Ghose did not mention whether police complaints were made in connection with those alleged attacks.
There was no immediate response from the state government or the police to the claims.