Badal Kumar Panda identifies as a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) worker and is the local president of Hindutva group Deva Sena in Nilgiri, Odisha. He is known for assaulting Christians and spreading anti-minority rhetoric through his social media posts.

In December 2024, two Christian women were beaten up, humiliated, had Christmas cake smeared on their faces and were tied to a tree by members of Deva Sena for allegedly promoting religious conversion of an Indigenous Hindu man. Panda livestreamed the incident on social media, clearly showing that they were forced to chant “Jai Sri Ram” as well.

Panda claimed that the women were “forcibly converting” a man to Christianity “by threatening him” and that village residents had “restrained” the accused. However the man who was allegedly being forcibly converted claimed the two women were known to him and that the crowd had “outraged their modesty by dragging them and tying them to a pillar.”

The police arrested Panda, Pitambar Biswal, Prasanta Kumar Nayak and Jayanta Kumar Nayak and also filed a case against the two women.

Panda regularly posts anti-minority content on his social media with one Facebook post that urged people not to celebrate Christmas on December 25 but instead celebrate Tulsi Puja, stating “This is not the land of Santa, it is the land of saints.”