Police on Monday have asked an American missionary wounded in an attack by Hindu nationalists to leave India within a week for violating visa rules.
A police officer said Joseph William Cooper, 67, of New Castle, Pennsylvania, had traveled to India on a visitor's visa, which meant he wasn't allowed to preach at churches.
"Cooper has violated visa rules. He has been found preaching at various places in Kottayam district and in Trivandrum in Kerala state," police superintendent Vinod Kumar told The Associated Press in Trivandrum, the capital of southern Kerala state.
Cooper was asked to leave India shortly after he was discharged from a hospital in Trivandrum on Monday, Kumar said. Cooper underwent surgery for a deep cut on his right hand.
He wasn't immediately available for comment.
Suspected Hindu nationalists attacked Cooper and seven others last week with bamboo sticks, swords and crowbars after they left a church gathering on the outskirts of Trivandrum.
Kumar said police will prosecute four members of a hard-line Hindu group, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or National Volunteer Corps, who are accused of the attack.
The RSS, a group allied with the national ruling party, objects to the activities of Christian missionaries and the spread of what it sees as Western influence in India.
R. Santhosh, a local RSS leader, said his organization had nothing to do with the attack, but he accused Cooper and other Christians of insulting Hindus.
Hindu hard-liners have been increasingly attacking Christians since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in 1999, accusing the missionaries of converting poor Hindus by offering money. Christian organizations deny the charge.
On Jan. 23, 1999, Australian missionary Graham Stewart Staines and his young sons were burned to death by a mob while they were sleeping in their vehicle parked outside a church in eastern Orissa state.