At least 20 houses burned and 70 Christian families forced to become Hindus in one day.
NEW DELHI, September 9 (Compass Direct News) – The spate of anti-Christian violence that began following the killing of a Hindu leader on Aug. 23 in Orissa’s Kandhamal district continued yesterday despite a stream of meetings by Christian and rights groups with high government officials. At least 20 houses were burned last night and 70 Christian families forcibly ‘reconverted’ to Hinduism yesterday in separate incidents in the eastern state. There were also reports of Hindu extremists poisoning the water at relief camps in Kandhamal. Representatives of the Christian community in India have met with the president, the federal interior minister, the leader of the ruling United Progressive Alliance Sonia Gandhi, Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, and several other political leaders to urge them to ensure protection of Christians in Orissa.
Source: Compass Direct News
BJP to Orissa CM: address food crisis
Violence-torn Orissa still awaits a minority commission
New Delhi, Sept 09: While communal clashes continue to singe Orissa, the constitution of a minority commission in the state as recommended by the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) is yet to see the light of the day.
NCM Vice Chairman Michael P Pinto who visited Orissa in December last year had made six recommendations for the state including the formation of a minority commission there, construction of roads in the villages and organising inter-community exchange programmes.
Pinto, who is again visiting the violence-torn Kandhamal and other affected areas of Orissa, where churches have been burnt, argues that these steps can still go a long way in solving the problem.
"Places of worship of the Christians destroyed in violence should be reconstructed with the government's help. Concrete measures are required to fill the communication gap between the two communities, which has widened after the violence. And there should definitely be a state minority commission (SMC) in Orissa," the NCM Vice-Chairman told reporters. Read more
Project Orissa
The Sangh Parivar’s brutal attacks on Christians in Orissa’s Kandhamal district are part of a political project. Read the Frontline article by Prafulla Das
According to accounts sent to AsiaNews from Bhubaneshwar, the fundamentalist groups are also spreading through the villages and forcing the Christians to sign papers saying that they are "freely" returning to Hinduism. Those who refuse are beaten, and their homes are burned.
Sometimes - sources tell AsiaNews - as a sign of their "new life", they are forced to burn the churches and homes of other Christians.
And the destruction itself is becoming more "intelligent". Sometimes, instead of burning homes, the fundamentalists content themselves with taking all of the furniture and objects out of it, and destroying them. In this way, they say, they make the families poor and exclude them from reimbursement by the government, which has promised money for those who have had their homes burned. This method is also useful in case the fundamentalists are arrested by the police: arson is punishable with years in prison, but the distraction of objects with only a few months.
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