Khambra

Khambra is a village in Jalandhar district, on the Nakodar road. It is the seat of the Church of Signs and Wonders, which The Tribune calls “the biggest Pentecostal church of Punjab”. Its pastor, Ankur Narula, comes from a Hindu Khatri family and took the name Ankur Yoseph Narula after turning to Christianity; he has said publicly that he was a drug addict and that Jesus rescued him. Wikipedia says the ministry was founded in 2008 with three people and, citing Hindustan Times, puts its weekly congregations near 30,000.

Key moments

• 2008: the ministry begins at Khambra (Wikipedia).
• 13 October 2021: Akal Takht Jathedar Giani Harpreet Singh accuses missionaries of pressing Sikh families in the border belt to convert, and the SGPC launches a village campaign; the Church of North India's Bishop of Amritsar calls the charge baseless. The report names no pastors or villages.
• 25 October 2022: in his Bandi Chhor Diwas message the Jathedar warns Sikhs against “fake pastors” luring Sikh families, and criticises the government's silence. He names no one.
• 31 January 2023: Income Tax teams raid the pastors Bajinder Singh, Harpreet Deol and Avtar Singh over alleged unaccounted foreign funding. Khambra is not named.
• 25 April 2023: Income Tax teams raid 12 premises linked to Narula and his businesses, among them the church, his home, his in-laws' home at Phillaur and training centres in Jalandhar. The Tribune reported no charges and said he was known to be getting foreign funding that officials were tracking. Wikipedia adds that the raids followed a 2020 complaint to the Union Home Ministry by the Legal Rights Observatory, alleging a UK-registered shell company was used to launder foreign donations.

What it means today. The Akal Takht's and the SGPC's campaign against conversion is aimed at border villages, while Khambra lies in the Jalandhar Doab. No source opened here ties the church to the Jathedar's charges.