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On a bright Sunday morning, Riaz Ahmed Dhobi walks toward All Saints Church in Srinagar, a city of 750,000 in Kashmir, the mountainous border region bloodied by conflicts between India and Pakistan. "I am interested in this religion," says the 30-year-old Muslim, a student at Kashmir University. "I hate violence. I hate fundamentalists in Islam. I come here to seek peace."

In recent months, according to Christian sources inside the Indian-controlled section of Kashmir, thousands of mostly young Kashmiri Muslims, disillusioned by Islam, are seeking new ways to resolve Muslim-Hindu violence.

"You will find thousands of people interested in Christianity, but due to fear they can't come out openly, can't accept," says Yonathan Paljor, 77, of All Saints Church, part of the Church of North India, formed in 1970 by major Protestant churches. "They are threatened for life and socially boycotted."

The danger hits close to home. "Our church building and pastoral house were burned twice," Paljor says. "Both times we had to run away and mix with the mob to save our lives. A Christian lady's house was also burned." A Gospel for Asia (GFA) Bible school student named Neeraj B. was murdered three months ago; local Christians believe Muslim radicals committed the murder.

"Although the senior GFA leader who oversees the Kashmir region had given permission to all of our missionaries and students to leave the area," GFA reports, "47 of them chose to stay behind and be a witness for the Lord to those who are fleeing the potential war zone. Even now they are scattered along the border areas of Kashmir, preaching the gospel to the refugees and assisting them in practical ways."

The Indian-controlled portion (Jammu and Kashmir state) is the only Muslim-majority state in Hindu-majority India. The region has known little peace since Britain partitioned the Indian subcontinent along religious lines in 1947. India and Pakistan have fought three wars since their independence. Two have been over Kashmir. In 1989 Muslim militants renewed an independence campaign in the India-administered section. More than 35,000 people have died in the conflicts since 1989.

Muslim militants from Pakistan killed 28 Hindu civilians in Jammu, 180 miles from Srinagar, in July. Meanwhile, the army and police patrol intensively, on foot and in jeeps and trucks laden with machine guns.

The climate of violence has caused some Kashmiri Muslims to seek out local church leaders to talk about Christianity.

"Militancy shook the inner being of many," says Premi Gergan, 65, a retired principal of the Mallinson Girls School, a Roman Catholic institution. "And people, particularly the young, started inquiring. Every day one to two people come to me to know about [the] gospel. They say, 'In our religion, there is no forgiveness.' "

"There is no freedom to choose religion," says Mohd Yousuf Ghani, one of Dhobi's fellow students. "I like Jesus' message of love."

Operation World estimates the presence of about 15,000 Christians—including fewer than 100 former Muslims—and 167 churches among Kashmir's 9.4 million people. But many leaders acknowledge a larger number of secret believers who are ethnic Kashmiris, mostly Muslim in background.

"There are more Christians in Kashmir than on the record," Gergan says. "They have faith in Jesus but don't come out. They are not bold about it. Their number goes into [the] thousands in the rural areas. We don't want to advertise. It has serious repercussions."

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September 9 2002, Vol. 46, No. 10