NEW DELHI, June 13 (UPI) -- Four U.S. missionaries who were attacked over the weekend will be deported from India for visa violations, Bombay police said Monday.
"The four U.S. nationals will be deported by the next available flight for violation of visa conditions," Additional Police Commissioner (Special Branch) Bipin Bihari told the semi-official Press Trust of India.
The four -- Philip Allan, Clover Edward, Richard Jenal and an unidentified person -- were assaulted Saturday in a suburb of Bombay, India's commercial capital, because it was thought they were forcibly trying to convert people to Christianity.
Christians make up about 2 percent of India's strong population of 1 billion people.
Religious violence usually targets Muslims, but Christian missionaries have been attacked in the past for allegedly forcibly converting the local population. In the most famous case, a Hindu mob burned an Australian missionary and his son alive in the east of the country.
