Ankur Narula

Ankur Narula, who also uses the name Ankur Yoseph Narula, runs the Church of Signs and Wonders at Khambra village on Nakodar Road near Jalandhar. The Tribune called it the biggest Pentecostal church in Punjab in April 2023. It was started only in 2008. By January 2023 the paper counted 12 branches in Punjab towns and nearby, others in West Bengal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh, and weekly services in cities abroad including London, Toronto and New York. Narula then had 1.34 million YouTube subscribers.

The Tribune says he comes from a Hindu Khatri family, took the name Ankur Yoseph Narula when he began following Christianity, and has said in public several times that he was a drug addict whom Jesus rescued. His wife, Sonia Yoseph Narula, preaches with him. Local reporting called him a young and charismatic pastor. He says people are cured remotely when they join his online prayers.

Key moments

• 20 December 2022: a large Christmas procession through Jalandhar, which Narula called the biggest of its kind so far.
• 25 April 2023: Income Tax teams raided 12 premises linked to him and his businesses, including the church and his home. The Tribune reported that foreign funding and donations were being examined. The reports used here do not say what came of it.
• 19 December 2025: another Christmas procession in Jalandhar, with thousands taking part and leaders from several parties present. Narula, called an apostle in the report, rejected allegations that money is exchanged for conversion, saying he was there to change lives, not religion. He also said an earlier remark about mercy for a man accused in a child rape and murder case referred to spiritual forgiveness, and that the man "may be hanged".

The wider dispute: In October 2021 Giani Harpreet Singh, then Jathedar of Sri Akal Takht Sahib, accused Christian missionaries of using money and other means to convert Sikh and Scheduled Caste Sikh families in border villages. The Bishop of Amritsar of the Church of North India called the charge baseless. Those statements concern missionaries in general and do not name Narula. In 2023 The Tribune also quoted a follower at his church who said worshippers are given pouches into which they put cash as an offering, and quoted Sikh historian Gurdarshan Singh Dhillon, who blamed the SGPC for failing to check what he called superstition and miracle healing.

What he is known for: leading what The Tribune called the biggest of the independent Pentecostal churches that have multiplied in Doaba villages over the last decade, with a large online following. Whether those churches draw Sikhs away from the Panth, and by what means, is argued by the Akal Takht and the churches in the sources above. Those are claims and denials, not findings.