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Anti-Christian violence in Orissa, India, continues into its seventh day. It is being reported that several are dead or missing, hundreds of churches and houses have been torched, and thousands have fled for safety to government relief camps and even into the jungle.
Over one thousand Christians, including priests, nuns, women and children, have fled to the jungles of India's Orissa State where deadly anti-Christian violence entered its seventh day, a church official told BosNewsLife Sunday, December 30.
"The situation is still under tension," in Orissa's communal clash-stricken district of Kandhama, said Leena Joseph a missionary nun of the Catholic St. Joseph order in Orissa, after Hindu extremists' attacks killed at least nine Christians this week and injured many more.
"Church leaders and minority Christians have lost faith in the government and police for having failed to protect the minority community," she added, referring to the Christians hiding in jungles. "The government has always passive, inactive and apathetic when it comes to Christians and their welfare," the nun added.
Associated Press reports that police are searching for seven Christian teenage girls who have gone missing.
Yesterday, Human Rights Watch (HRW) called for an independent inquiry into the rampage, saying it is the latest manifestation of a long-standing anti-Christian campaign by extremist Hindu groups.
“The Orissa government should have addressed this problem before it became violent,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, senior researcher for the Asia division of Human Rights Watch. “The authorities are still failing to react quickly enough, and now ordinary people are being attacked.” Right-wing Hindu organizations such as the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and the Bajrang Dal have been promoting anti-Christian propaganda in Orissa because they want the state’s Christians, most of them members of tribal groups, to convert to Hinduism. These groups accuse Christian missionaries of forcing tribal people and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity. In January 1999, Hindu militants in Orissa trapped Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two sons in their car and burned them alive.
HRW suggests that, if the central government does not act to stem the violence, punish the instigators, and check religious hatred, India’s status as an officially secular state will be put at risk.
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