MUMBAI: Hindu hardliners attacked two Christian missionaries in public in western India on Tuesday, the latest violence against priests accused by right-wing groups of trying to convert lower-caste Hindus to Christianity.

Indian TV channels showed Hindu activists kicking and punching the two young priests while dragging them through Kolhapur town in the southern part of Maharashtra state.

News footage showed an activist knee one priest in the groin, making him double up in pain. Another kicked the missionary in the head. The crowd accused the priests of forcibly converting poor Hindus, and handed them over to police. But a local Christian leader said those baptised had willingly changed their faith.

“The point is whether it was forced conversion or not is subject to a police investigation and is not to be judged by a mob,” Dolphy D'Souza said.

But police said the two missionaries had been arrested on complaints that they were fraudulently converting people.

Hardline Hindu groups -- some of them linked to Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) -- accuse Christian priests of bribing poor tribes people and lower caste Hindus to change their faith.—Reuters