A team of four missionaries was badly beaten last week during a Christian film showing for villagers.

While the people outside the village gathered last Tuesday to watch the movie "Man of Mercy", an Indian-made film portraying the life of Jesus, some anti-Christian elements disrupted the show and started beating the missionaries from the mission group Gospel for Asia.

The police reportedly confiscated the film equipment and started to beat the GFA missionaries, before arresting them.

Following the intervention of the GFA state leader in Rajasthan, the four men were released around noon the following day. The film equipment, however, is allegedly still in police custody.

Elsewhere, two Gospel for Asia missionaries and two Bible college students in North India were attacked while distributing leaflets to people.

Chetan, one of the GFA missionaries, was badly beaten and injured.

Christians and Christian organisations continue to report a dramatic increase in the level of persecution in India in recent years, with more incidents recorded between 1998 and 2003 than in the previous 100 years.

Open Doors, a ministry that serves persecuted Christians worldwide, says this is largely due to a surge in Hindu fundamentalism. The ruling Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) has created cells of young Hindu activists in many towns and universities. Hindutva, an awakening of militant Hinduism, is gaining ground as a result.

Last week, as India celebrated the 60th anniversary of its independence from British rule, police in Mysore, India, told a group of 70 believers to stop offering Independence Day prayers without permission after Hindu radicals barged into the prayer hall and disrupted them.

The latest incident is one of many in the recent escalation of attacks on Christians in Karnataka state.

In the nation of 1.1 billion people, only 2.3 per cent is Christian, according to the 2001 census, while Hindus make up 80.5 per cent and Muslims 13.4 per cent of the population.