Amritsar August 15 : The Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) led by Punjab government has appointed prominent but self styled Christian pastor Ankur Yoseph Narula’s close aide, Jatinder Masih ‘Gaurav’, as chairman of the Punjab State Minorities Commission. He is the first appointee to the post from the followers of the Pentecostal churches, which emerged in Punjab in recent years, replacing those from the old mainline Protestant or Catholic streams.
Pentecostal churches headed by individual pastors, both in terms of their numbers and following, have shown phenomenal growth in Punjab in the last some years and are involved in converting the Sikhs and Hindus to Christianity. Apart from people in Punjab, they also attracting migrants from other states in Punjab, and also getting traction in other states. Coming from a Balmiki-Protestant family in Kalanaur, Gurdaspur district, Jatinder Singh Randhawa became a follower of pastor Narula around a decade ago and took the name Jatinder Masih ‘Gaurav’. As he became a close and loyal aide, he was appointed president of the Ankur Narula Ministries management committee. He also became president of the Global Christian Action Committee.
According to a Christian community leader, earlier, most of the time, chairmen were picked from among the oldtime Protestants in the state. Village Khambra (Jalandhar) based Ankur Narula Ministries claims to be the biggest and fastest-growing church in Punjab, and this claim does not appear to be an exaggeration, given the numbers he attracts for his weekly congregations, both physically and online. Apart from practising exorcism, Narula also claims miraculous healing of patients suffering from serious medical conditions.
“The church building (at Khambra) we have raised would be the biggest church in Asia, and it would be without pillars. It would be able to accommodate 50,000 people at a time,” Gaurav told. Their church, he said, attracts people from across Punjab, but most come from Gurdaspur, Amritsar, Jalandhar, and Kapurthala districts. Narula also initiated scores of pastors, who are now spread across Punjab and other states. Some of the individual pastors attract thousands in their weekly congregations, where the biggest attraction remains miracle healing of serious and chronic diseases, or sorting out other problems, including financial ones.
IT raids conducted at Narula’s residence & other properties
Mentionably, the income-tax (I-T) department had raided self-styled pastor Ankur Narula’s church, residence and other properties in April 2023. Previously in January 2023, another self styled Christian pastors Bajinder Singh and Harpreet Deol were also raided.
It is noteworthy that in April 2023, the Pentecostal Church Parbandhak Committee, headed by Harpreet Deol, had sponsored formation of a Christian political party, United Punjab Party, which initially announced to contest the Jalandhar parliamentary bypoll, but then announced to support AAP.
It was reported that the raids were conducted on the complaints of money laundering as Ankur was establishing a church at Switzerland and siphoning off money from India in this regard.
Who’s Ankur Narula
Ankur Narula, who was born in a Hindu Khatri family, changed his name to Ankur Yoseph Narula after converting to Christianity. He is a recovered drug addict.
He is the founder of the Pastor Ankur Narula Ministries, also known as The Church of Signs and Wonders, which is the biggest and fastest growing church in Punjab.
According to the website of the church (ankurnarul.org), Apostle Ankur Narula came to know about Lord Jesus Christ when he was contemplating suicide amidst intoxication and sickness. He surrendered himself to God for the gospel and started his ministry with only three people in the church in the year 2008. By 2009, the church had grown to 500 members, and by 2013, it had reached 13,000 members. In 2014, the church had 18,000 members, and today, it has over 300,000 members, with hundreds of people taking baptism in the church every month.
