Maoist Assassination of Hindu leader; Suspicion and Acusation by Hindu activists against Christians; Subsequent Arson, Rape and Mass Murder of India’s Christians

In August, Hindu nationalist leader Laxmanananda Saraswati was assassinated.  Orissa police and media said suspected Maoists had killed Saraswati, but some Hindus thought Christians had killed him in revenge for earlier attacks on Christians by Hindu activist organizations so they, in supposed retaliation, started attacking local Christians, their houses and churches.

The worst violence against Christians in modern India erupted. According to All India Christian Council, more than 60 people have been killed, more than 18,000 injured and around 4,500 houses and churches destroyed. Two Christian women, including a nun, were also gang-raped. The violence later spread to at least 14 districts of Orissa and has left more than 50,000 people homeless.

Orissa police meanwhile arrested three tribal Christians in connection with Saraswati’s murder. The Indian Express said the three confessed involvement.  A representative of the Christian Legal Association said police tortured the three to pressure them to confess a crime they didn’t commit.

On October 5, the chief of Orissa’s unit of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist, Sabyasachi Panda, told NDTV 24X7 news his organization was behind the murder.  The Maoists killed Saraswati because he was a key leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP), Panda told the channel. The VHP, he said, used non-tribal traders’ money to build VHP’s youth wing, Bajrang Dal, and ran a campaign against Christians, falsely accusing them of forced conversions and killing cows, considered holy by Hindus.  Panda said, ‘This forced us to attack him.  We left two letters claiming responsibility for the murders. But the [Chief Minister Naveen] Patnaik government suppressed those letters. It is a BJP [Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party] government; they will support the VHP. The state government made it look like Christian groups were responsible for the attack. The Christian community in Orissa does not have any Maoist organization supporting them here.’

The next day, Orissa’s police confirmed it.

So the Hindu Jagaran Samukhya (Society for Revival of Hinduism or HJS) circulated forged documents saying the plan to kill Saraswati in Kandhamal district was made at a meeting at Bethikala Church on May 25 attended by 17 people following a briefing and command from religious leaders, trying to implicate a local church in the August 23 murder.

So local Christian leaders Joseph Kalathil from the Catholic Archbishop House in Bubaneshwar and Prafulla Ku Sabhapathi, president of Bethikala Parish Council of Kandhamal, said, ‘We will file both civil and criminal defamation cases against the person who made such allegations…..Not only our signatures were forged, the contents of the documents were also fabricated.’
Attacks continue
Orissa’s Kandhamal district remained tense even 48 days after violence began.  About 15 more homes were burned by a mob in Lansaripalli Village in Kantamal Block of neighboring Boudh district, The Hindu reported.  Attackers came from Gochhapada area of Kandhamal district.  ‘Thursday’s was the third incident in Boudh district,’ added the daily. ‘More than 100 houses were burnt down in two separate attacks in the past few days.’

A mob burned and looted at least 25 houses belonging to Christians in Balligada Village under Daringbadi Police Station in Kandhamal’s Nuagam Block, Father Ajay Singh of the Catholic Archdiocese of Bhubaneswar said.

Over five houses were torched in Jalespanga area under Phiringia police jurisdiction in Kandhamal.  Another house was burned in the Sujeli village of G. Udayagiri Block.

The Hindu also said more than 16,000 Christians living in various relief camps were not returning to villages, fearing attacks on them if they refused to convert to Hinduism.

Fr. Singh from the Bhubaneswar Archdiocese said over 12,000 Christians from various relief camps feared more attacks, so moved out of Kandhamal to other districts and states.

But the VHP denies the facts about the Maoist murder.  VHP president Ashok Singhal  told Zee News channel, ‘What Hindu organizations including the VHP, the Bajrang Dal and the RSS [Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, India's chief Hindu nationalist group] are doing in Orissa is all legal and is the reaction of the murder of VHP leader Saraswati, who was like Jesus Christ to us.’  In an interview with The Week magazine, he said Hindu youth are ‘ready to die and, if necessary, to kill. [Their] patience is ebbing.’  He said a ‘Hindu uprising’ had begun, ‘and the political parties will have to rethink and reinvent themselves, for their own existence. If there is no arrangement for Hindus’ security, they’ll do it on their own.  The Hindus will not die.  If self-defense is militancy, so be it…the Hindu never went around the world for suzerainty or to convert…now they are here, undermining us. That causes anger.  In fact many want to fight back this harvesting of Hindus.’

Also, southern state Karnataka’s Bajrang Dal convener Mahendra Kumar while speaking to The Week magazine, said, ‘We supported those who attacked the churches, as it is a justified fight’.

Violence in Orissa spread to several other states, including Karnataka, where around 20 churches were destroyed and 20 Christians were attacked in recent weeks.

Many political parties and rights groups demand a ban on Bajrang Dal for attacking Christians and churches in Orissa and other states, so the federal government ruled by the United Progressive Alliance mandated the National Integration Council to give recommendations, reported Times of India.

Bajrang Dal warned any such move would have ‘grave consequences’ for the government politically, saying there was ‘no legal ground’ for such an action.

There are 897,861 Christians in Orissa, which has a population of 36.8 million.