Indian state erupts in violence after Hindu shot

[hafiz 1]

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/...ence/index.html

The remote east Indian state of Orissa, historically a tinderbox of Hindu-Christian tensions, erupted in violence this week after gunmen killed a Hindu leader and mobs burned churches in retaliation.

Four days of communal clashes left at least nine people dead. Authorities have imposed a curfew and ordered security forces to shoot violators on sight.

Pope Benedict XVI "firmly condemned" the fighting and urged the state's residents to "re-establish with the members of the various communities the peaceful cohabitation and the harmony that has always been the distinctive mark of the Indian society."

The Hindu leader, Laxmananda Saraswati, and four others were killed Saturday in the Kandhamal district when up to 30 gunmen barged into a Hindu school and opened fire, Orissa's chief minister's office said.

Authorities have not definitively determined who killed Saraswati, but they detained five Christian people after the incident, said Sukanta Panda, spokesman for the chief minister.

The government said the killings may have been the work of Maoist rebels, but hardline Hindus blamed the Christian minority.

They took to the streets in anger, rampaging through predominantly Christian neighborhoods, ransacking shops and torching houses. They chopped down trees to block roads, making it difficult for police to reach trouble spots. Christian residents fought back.

By Wednesday, an eerie calm prevailed, but both Hindu and Christian leaders said they were bracing for the worst.

"The state is a mute spectator to the violence that has been unleashed in the Christian community," Joseph D'Souza, president of the All India Christian Council, said Wednesday.

Amit Sharma of the hardline Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council) said Hindu people in the area had taken the death of the Swami (religious leader) "very seriously, and now they are going to pay them back."

Orissa, on the east coast of India, is a poor state with a population of about 36.7 million: 94 percent are Hindu, with little more than 2 percent Christian.

However, for thousands, converting to another religion -- such as Christianity or Islam -- is the only way out of the confines of Hinduism's centuries-old complex caste system.

The caste system dictates a Hindu's lot in life, elevating some to positions as priests and labeling others as "untouchables."

Some Hindu groups accuse missionaries of bribing or forcing Hindus into converting.

"There is no forcible conversion," said D'Souza of the All India Christian Council. "This is nothing but pure political hate propaganda against the Christians when the root problem is, of course, caste oppression."

The simmering anger sometimes boils over, with deadly consequences.

In 1999, a Hindu mob burned to death an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his two children while they slept in their car.

At Christmas, clashing groups killed four people and burned several churches in Kandhamal.

D'Souza said Saraswati "piloted" the Christmas communal violence and had carried out a "vicious campaign against the Christians."

Sharma said missionaries were threatened by Saraswati's growing influence.

"He was doing a good job of propagating the bright points of Hinduism, and the missionaries were not able to convert the tribal people as effectively as they were doing previously," Sharma said. "So they decided to do away with him."

Investigators, however, have raised the possibility that Maoists rebels may be to blame.

The rebels, who claim to be fighting for the poor and the dispossessed, have been battling the government in an insurgency that has resulted in thousands of casualties since the late 1960s.

However, Hindu groups insist Christians was behind Saraswati's death.

"It is clear that the church killed the Swami," said the Hindu council's general secretary, Praveen Togadia. "The rest of what happened is something the government needs to investigate and tell the people of India."

On Monday, Hindu hard-liners declared a general strike, prompting banks and markets to close across the state.

Mourners marched to a Christian orphanage and set it on fire. A 20-year-old woman who was teaching children burned to death, Panda said.

The next day, armed Hindus and Christians fired at each other, resulting in four deaths, he said.

Both sides said the communal violence had destroyed Christian churches and Hindu temples.

The violence spread to the state capital, Bhubaneshwar, about 140 miles (225 km) away.

Father Pius Fernandes said mobs threw stones at a children's school and ransacked a nearby college.

"I would say the violence is seven times worse [than in December]," he said. "I mean, the government is trying its best. But it's like a mad frenzy. They are just destroying everything."

[Saddle Bronc 124]

None of media even has the initiative to investigate possibility of VHP doing a version of Bier Hall Putsch and electing the chopf--k swami to play the equivalent of Ernst Röhm.

Especially as two men who died 2008/08/24 when assembling IED's were PROCLAIMED by Bajrang Dal (subdivision/front of VHP) as being "inactive" members"

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Updation: Naxalites make belated claim they killed swami

India Christians shelter in camps

More than 10,000 Christians are living in refugee camps in the eastern Indian state of Orissa after anti-Christian violence in the area, officials say.

Meanwhile, the toll in the continuing violence, after a Hindu leader was killed 10 days ago, has risen to 20.

Over 3,000 police have been deployed but attacks on churches and Christian institutions continue.

A senior Maoist leader has claimed responsibility for the killing, but Hindu groups have accused Christians.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has described the violence as a "national disgrace".

The Pope too has condemned the violence and the Italian government has expressed its concerns.

'Wretched condition'

With the violence spreading to new areas of the state, refugees continued to arrive at the camps, officials said.

"People actually are in a very wretched condition," news agency Reuters quoted Bijoy Sarangi, who is in-charge of a relief camp in Kandhamal, as saying.

"They are coming from neighbouring villages and the local administration has taken all steps to bring them from their villages to this place. Gradually, the number is increasing," he said.

The state's chief minister, Naveen Patnaik, visited some of the people caught up in the violence in the worst-affected Kandhamal district.

"I've been to see the houses here. I have met the people here. Relief is being given. Matters will be checked up thoroughly to see that whatever their damages are and that they get the compensation for that," Mr Patnaik said.

Meanwhile, fresh anti-Christian violence was reported from the state's Koraput district over the weekend.

Officials said 10 churches were burnt by arsonists and attacks on Christian houses and institutions continued.

Officials said all schools and colleges in Koraput have been ordered shut for the next three days.

'Punished'

Trouble began 10 days ago after Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati was shot along with four others in an attack in the Kandhamal district.

Hindu mobs blamed the killing on Christians and burnt down monasteries, churches and an orphanage.

Among those killed was a Hindu woman who was working at the orphanage, in the village of Barakhama.

Meanwhile, a prominent Maoist leader has claimed that Hindu leader Swami Laxamananda Saraswati was killed by Maoists.

On Saturday, a man claiming to be the prominent rebel leader "Azad" told a local newspaper that the Hindu leader was "punished" for his "fascist" activities.

"He was killed by the People's Liberation Guerrilla Army (PLGA) for the dubious role he played in the violence against Christians in December last year," he said.

But it didn't bother "Azad" one whit that Christians would suffer apparently--proving that he (like all Naxalites) is a chopf**k only "hamming" about supporting their rights, or anyone else's!

The BBC's Rahul Tandon in the state capital, Bhubaneswar, says it is a complex issue - Hindu groups have long accused Christian priests of bribing poor tribes and low-caste Hindus to change their faith.

Christians say lower-caste Hindus convert willingly to escape the Hindu caste system.

As the authorities struggle to deal with the present situation, the divide between the two communities grows wider and wider, our correspondent says.

[Saddle Bronc 124]

Historical correction: I had confused the Beer Hall Putsch of 1932 with the Long Knives Night of 1934--the latter was the correct reference.