Six Hindu nationalist (Hindutva) extremists stormed a house church, abducted two Christians and severely beat them onJanuary 17 in Madhya Pradesh state’s Rewa district.

Brandishing swords, knives, tridents and sticks, the alleged members of the Hindu extremist Bajrang Dal arrived on three motorbikes at a house church prayer meeting in Pathigaon village and began forcing Vijaya Kumar Maurya and Keera Lal to come with them to a police station, said the Rev. Augustine Jebakumar of GEMS, an indigenous Christian organization.

Other believers said they would like to accompany Maurya and Lal to the police station, at which point the Hindu extremists beat the two Christians, took them to a jungle, and beat them again.

At least 18 people are confirmed dead in 92 incidents of violence against Christians since suspected Maoists murdered Hindu leader Swamiji Laxmanananda Saraswati and four others on Aug. 23 in Orissa state.

With Hindu extremists inciting hatred by heated accusations that Christians killed Saraswati, the national newspaper Hindu reported today that nine people had been killed in Orissa violence, and a Compass source near the state capital of Bhubaneswar confirmed an additional nine people slain.

The death count by the Hindu included four people killed in the Barakhama area. News agencies had earlier confirmed three dead in Raikia and two others, including a woman, killed in Bargarh, where a missionary-run orphanage was set on fire yesterday. The figure of 92 incidents thus far comes from the Global Council of Indian Christians.

There were many reports of Christians being pulled from their homes and killed or beaten, with many homes of Christians torched in Baliguda. According to reports by the Evangelical Fellowship of India (EFI), the East India office of Compassion International in Bhubaneswar was ransacked.

Sources from Kandhamal district said hundreds of Christians along with their families have fled to the nearby forests to save their lives in the rainy climate and are without shelter, food and clothing.

The violence has spread even though church leaders across the country condemned the Hindu priest’s killing and appealed for peace.

Hindu extremists paraded the body of Saraswati throughout nearby villages, whipping up anger and mobilizing crowds against Christians, in uncontested defiance of a Kandhamal district administration prohibition against the gathering of four or more people. Among the slogans shouted was, Kill Christians and destroy their institutions.

Update: Almost Ethnic Cleansing

3rd September 2008

An estimated 50,000 schools and colleges and other educational institutions were closed as a protest against Hindu voiolence according to a spokesman of the All India Christian Council. The council - a nationwide alliance of Christian denominations, mission agencies, institutions, federations and Christian leaders - supported the strike called by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India.

Meanwhile, protests were reported from various parts of India, including New Delhi, where scores of Christians marched.

There is almost an ethnic cleansing in the state, Babu Joseph, spokesman of the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, told the IANS news agency.

After a meeting with Christian groups, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described the violence as a "national disgrace."

A policeman has been killed, the body of another victim of Hindu extremist violence was discovered and more houses and churches burned in Orissa state’s Kandhamal district even as anti-Christian violence spread to at least five more states across India over the weekend.

Christians and churches were targeted in Karnataka, Kerala, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Jharkhand as fallout from violence in Orissa that began following the assassination of a Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati, and four of his disciples in Kandhamal district on August 23.

A mob of around 500 rioters today killed a policeman and burned down a police station in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, where Hindu extremists launched a spate of attacks three weeks ago blaming local Christians of killing Saraswati and his disciples. Maoists have claimed responsibility for the murders of the Hindu leaders.

A large number of attackers armed with country-made guns and crude weapons gunned down a constable and set ablaze the police station at Gochapada early this morning, Director General of Police Gopal Nanda told The Indian Express.

In the remote Indian state of Orissa your religion can cost you your life. Now a Christian mob has resorted to murder. Wielding knives and axes they have stabbed a Hindu man to death.

The killing followed a month-long campaign of murder, gang rape and arson by Hindu fanatics that drove Christians to take up arms to defend themselves, church officials in the area said yesterday. As many as 50,000 members of the minority Christian community have been forced into hiding in the jungle.

The Hindu man was killed near the town of Raikia in the Kandahmal district, which in the past month has featured some of the worst anti-Christian violence in India since partition.

The Home Ministry in Delhi, which faces international criticism for failing to stamp out the violence, admitted that a situation of apparent lawlessness now reigns in the state.

Police are investigating unconfirmed reports of Christian militias being formed, with some attempting to make bombs. The reports have been denied by Christian leaders.

Similar tensions are simmering across India, where at least 45 Christians have died at the hands of Hindu fanatics in recent weeks, according to the Roman Catholic Church. Government officials, who in some areas have been accused of being complicit in the tragedy, have put the death toll at 27.

An estimated 4,000 homes have been razed, crops have been spoilt, livestock slaughtered and possessions looted. Witnesses have described Christians being forcibly converted to Hinduism while axes were held to their throats.

David Griffiths, of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a campaign group, said: Christians going back to their homes are facing violence or coercive conversion to Hinduism. And yet the state government continues to claim that everything is normal.

The Rev Harish Arisalya, the regional secretary of the All India Christian Council in Orissa, said: Perhaps Christians should have defended themselves since the beginning of the attacks, but they chose to avoid conflict. Now Christians are being killed every day. The situation is going from bad to worse.

The unrest is thought to have been spearheaded by the Bajrang Dal, an influential extremist Hindu youth organisation. They are highly communal and fascist in their approach. The Government must move strongly against them, a spokesman for Congress, the leading party in India's coalition Government, said.

At least two more Christians have been killed in Orissa state’s Kandhamal district after Hindu extremists this week set fire to nearly 400 homes there and in Boudh district.

A third man died after succumbing to previous axe injuries.

Tribal peoples in Sindhipankha village killed Dushashan Majhi, a local influential Christian, first shooting him and them cutting him to pieces. Local Christian leaders reported that Majhi was a government servant working in the treasury.

The mob then turned on Sanyasi Majhi, also said to be Christian, who was with Dushashan Majhi. There were unconfirmed reports that a third victim was killed along with the other two.

Local news reports said that the attacks – which have continued unabated since Hindu extremists blamed Christians for the death of Hindu leader Laxmanananda Saraswati on Aug. 23 even though Maoist militants admitted murdering him – involve women first ransacking the Christian homes.

The modus operandi of the tribal mob is such that women go first and attack the Christian houses. They ransack and rob the household’s gold and other jewelry, TVs and all that is precious. The men then follow and burn the houses. Lately it has been reported that now they are fighting among themselves for the booty.

 

Hundreds of Christians in the Indian state of Orissa have been forced to renounce their religion and become Hindus after lynch mobs issued them with a stark ultimatum: convert or die.

The wave of forced conversions marks a dramatic escalation in a two-month orgy of sectarian violence which has left at least 59 people dead, 50,000 homeless and thousands of houses and churches burnt to the ground. As neighbour has turned on neighbour, thousands more Christians have sought sanctuary in refugee camps, unable to return to the wreckage of their homes unless they, too, agree to abandon their faith.

Last week, in the worst-affected Kandhamal district, The Observer encountered compelling evidence of the scale of the violence employed in a conversion programme apparently sanctioned by members of one of the most powerful Hindu groups in India, the 6.8-million member Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) - the World Hindu Council.

Standing in the ashes of her neighbour's house in the village of Sarangagada, Jaspina Naik, 32, spoke nervously, glancing towards a group of Hindu men watching her suspiciously. My neighbours said, "If you go on being Christians, we will burn your houses and your children in front of you, so make up your minds quickly", she said. I was scared. Christians have no place in this area now.

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A nun who was allegedly raped by more than 40 men during an outbreak of anti-Christian violence in India has accused local police of shielding her attackers.

The nun said she was sexually assaulted by a rioting mob at the end of August, days after the murder of a Hindu priest sparked attacks by Hindu extremists on the Christian community in the East coast Orissa state.

Nun Mina Barwa said she was dragged to a burned-out Christian home and was beaten with sticks and paraded semi-naked in the streets as mobs threatened to gang rape her.

More than half-a-dozen people have been arrested over the incident, but Barwa has called for a federal investigation as she had little faith in local Orissa police.

State police failed to stop the crimes, failed to protect me from the attackers, they were friendly with the attackers, and they tried their best to make sure that I did not make complaints against police. I was raped and now I don't want to be victimised by the Orissa police.

India's Supreme Court this week rejected a plea by a Catholic bishop for a federal investigation into the alleged rape, saying the matter should be probed by the Orissa police.

He wrote the book, he says to condemn the recent violence between Hindus and Christians in Kandhamal, but Lenin Kumar was arrested by the Orissa police on charges of writing and publishing inflammatory material that could cause communal unrest.

A day later, his bail plea was rejected and he was remanded to judicial custody. Lenin’s wife, Rumita Kundu, has also alleged that the police tortured her husband.

Now, civil right activists, writers and journalists are up in arms against the state Government and are planning a protest march to Raj Bhawan.

Lenin Kumar, editor of a quarterly Oriya magazine, Nishan, was arrested under sections 295 and 1539(A) of the Indian Penal Code for his book Dharma Nare Kandhamalare Raktara Banya (Bloodletting in Kandhamal in the name of religion).

Two others who helped him print and circulate the book have also been arrested and their bail pleas rejected as well. At least 700 copies of the book were seized from the printing press and the press sealed.

A U.S. government agency's decision to place India on a list of potential religious freedom violators is regrettable, said India's foreign ministry.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) had officially placed India on its Watch List - a list countries that the agency says require close monitoring due to the nature and extent of violations of religious freedom engaged in or tolerated by the government.

Specifically, USCIRF said India earned the Watch List designation due to the disturbing increase in communal violence against religious minorities– specifically Christians in Orissa in 2008 and Muslims in Gujarat in 2002 – and the largely inadequate response from the Indian government to protect the rights of religious minorities.

According to notes released by the USCIRF India chapter, deficiencies in investigating and prosecuting cases have resulted in a culture of impunity that gives members of vulnerable minority communities few assurances of their safety, particularly in areas with a history of communal violence, and little hope of perpetrator accountability.

An Indian fast-track court in Orissa state has sentenced five people to life imprisonment for murdering a pastor in Kandhamal violence against Christians a year ago.

The court found them guilty of killing Akbar Digal, a pastor of a Baptist church at Tatamaha village, on Aug 26 last year.

So far, 17 people have been convicted, including the five persons, in the Kandhamal Riots case. In the past, the fast-track courts had sentenced 12 people to rigorous imprisonment ranging from four to six years; but this is the first time the court has slapped the convicts to life imprisonment. The two fast-track courts - I and II were set up by the government to try cases related to anti-Christian violence that erupted in August 2008.

The anti-Christian violence broke out in Orissa after a Hindu fundamentalist - Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader, Laxmananda Saraswati, was murdered in August 2008. Hindus blamed Christians for killing Saraswati even though Maoist rebels had publicly claimed responsibility for the murder.

Following the swami's death, Hindu mobs attacked Christians, burning their homes, shops, churches and orphanages. More than 30,000 Christians from Orissa were forced to take shelter in refugee camps under fear for further attacks.

About 4,500 Christian homes were burned and 180 churches destroyed. At least 60 Christians were killed, according to the Orissa government's report, but church leaders in Orissa report higher figures and have accused the government of intentionally undercounting the number of deaths.