India update 9-30-08

Tue, 30/09/2008 - 11:12am Three killed in fresh firing in Kandhamal, Orissa
NEW DELHI: Three persons have been killed in fresh firing in Gresinghia in Kandhamal district of Orissa according to TV channel Times Now.Police fired at the mob after two communities clashed in the area.There are reports that some crude bombs were hurled in the area.
posted in: Current Issue, Persecution, East India
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Tue, 30/09/2008 - 9:27am Kandhamal witnessed more killing and arson
Bhubaneswar: Orissa30th September 2008
Atleast three killed and many Christian houses torched ,today in the renewed attacks aginst christians about 0400AM in Rudangia and Gadaguda villages under Tikabali block (5 Kms from G.Udayagiri).When a big group of Hindu extremists blocked the roads and then attacked, ransacked and set fire to many Christian house.Christian inhabitant in this village sustained serious injuries inflicted with sword, axes, daggers.
posted in: Current Issue, Persecution, East India
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Tue, 30/09/2008 - 7:32am 5 killed, 80 injured in blasts in Gujarat, Maharashtra towns
Malegaon/Banaskantha :30th Sept.On the heels of serial blasts in Kandhamal, At least five persons, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed and 80 injured on Monday night as terrorists set off bomb blasts in the communally-sensitive town of Malegaon in Maharashtra and Modasa town in Gujarat's Banaskantha district.
posted in: Current Issue, Persecution, West India
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Tue, 30/09/2008 - 7:28am Worst is yet to come in Karnataka
Worst is yet to come: CPM leaderDH News Service,Mangalore:Right to religion, right to protest and several other rights ensured to the citizens in the Constitution has been thrown apart by the BJP rule in Karnataka. This is the cost we would have to pay as the most uncivilised political party has come to power in the State. This is just the beginning. Worst is yet to come, said CPIM Leader and former minister Sriram Reddy.
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Tue, 30/09/2008 - 6:57am Nun was gang raped and priest brutally assaulted in Kandhamal-Parvathi Menon
FIRs lodged but no arrests by State government; no response from Centre; Sister Nirmala wrote to CM and PM appealing for protection to ChristiansTERRIFYING VIOLENCE: A vandalised church in Tengedapathar village in Kandhamal district. A mob shouting anti-Christian and Hindutva slogans targeted this church three days after the gang rape of a nun and attack on a priest in K.Nuagaon.Bhubaneswar: The Orissa government has failed to take any action, under the law of the land, against those who committed bestial crimes — the gang rape of a 28-year-old Catholic nun and the brutal attack on a Catholic priest who courageously resisted their attempts to force him to participate in the atrocity. These incidents took place on August 25 at K. Nuagaon, 12 km from the Baliguda subdivision in Kandhamal district. Both victims filed First Information Reports at the Baliguda police station. Sister Nirmala, Superior-General of the Missionaries of Charity, wrote to the Orissa Chief Minister and the Prime Minister specifying the atrocities.
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Mon, 29/09/2008 - 8:28pm LOSING HINDUISM -LOSING MY RELIGION-BY CHIDANAND RAJAGHATTA
(28 SEPT 2008 -TIMES OF INDIA )In the past fortnight, in the time some cretins have vandalised churches in India, at least two new Hindu temples opened in the United States.
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faces EU ire over 'massacre' of Christians
30 Sep 2008, 0133 hrs IST, Diwakar,TNN
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MARSEILLE: The European Union on Monday ticked off Prime Minister Manmohan Singh for his government's failure to prevent what it called a "massacr
e" of Christians in Orissa and Karnataka. This strongly-worded description of the violence in Kandhamal and the Bajrang Dal's destruction of churches in Karnataka came during the India-EU summit here. The issue was taken up strongly with Singh by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who is also the head of the European Council, and Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission. Talking to reporters, Sarkozy strongly dismissed the suggestion that the "massacre" could be equated with the discrimination Sikhs allegedly face in France. Although Sarkozy said he admired Singh's condemnation of the anti-Christian violence as a "national shame" and his promise to guarantee the religious rights of minority communities in India, the two sides clearly differed on the scale of the violence against Christians in India. In his reply, the PM said there were "some sporadic incidents" though he declared the determination of the state to ensure that minority communities exercise their constitutional right to profess and propagate their respective faiths. He listed the measures taken by the Centre — advisories to Karnataka and Orissa and deployment of its forces — to emphasize the intent of his government to put an end to violence against Christians allegedly by Bajrang Dal and VHP. Sarkozy and Barrosso expressed satisfaction with Singh's assurances. "He is a courageous man. My respect for him has gone up because of his courageous assurances," Sarkozy said. Barroso spoke in the same vein, saying that "we praise the clarity with which he has condemned the violence". The French president, however, was riled by a question which asked about the ban on Sikh turbans in government-funded schools in France. "Massacre of Christians and the turban issue are not of the same nature," he snapped. He also made it clear that Sikhs will have to conform to rules of the French Republic. "We respect their customs and traditions and they are welcome in France. But we have rules regarding the neutrality of civil servants; regarding secularism and those apply not just to Sikhs or Muslims but to all. They are non-discriminatory. So while we respect the customs of Sikhs, we expect them to respect the rules of the Republic," Sarkozy asserted. India and the EU have long had a thorny relationship on the issue of human rights. During the heyday of Kashmir terrorism, EU never failed to criticize Indian actions. In 2002, then Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee was ticked off by Danish PM Anders Rasmussen on human rights abuses of Kashmiris, leading Vajpayee to retaliate.





From Times Online ( London)
September 26, 2008
Bishop says the "worm has turned" after Indian Christians attack Hindu
Bishop Nazir-Ali appeals for Christian restraint in face of Hindu violence
Bess Twiston Davies
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Beleaguered Christians in India have "run out of cheeks to be struck" a senior Anglican bishop declared yesterday, on hearing reports that a Christian mob had hacked a Hindu to death in the troubled state of Orissa.
Dr Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, called for peace, and said that the murder, conducted by a knive-wielding mob of 50 Christians, could not be condoned. But he told The Times: “For months now, scores of Christians have been killed, homes, convents and presbyteries have been burnt down to the ground."
He said: "Now one Hindu has been killed, allegedly by Christians. We do not know under what circumstances but it suggests that the worm has turned and the Christian community has run out of cheeks to be struck."
Appealing for an immediate end to the violence, Dr Nazir-Ali added: "As Christians, we must ask our brothers to remain as peaceful as they have during the recent provocation. We must ask, however, when justice will be done and when these people, under severe pressure, will be allowed relief.”
Thursday's murder was one of two outbreaks of sectarian violence on the same day in the East Indian state of Orissa. According to police, 27 people died in Thursday's violence. In a second attack, 500 Hindus burned and attacked Christian homes and two parish halls, causing local Christians to flee. No one died, but hundreds of Christians are said to be living in the jungle, having already abandoned their homes, as a result of the ongoing violence, which began on August 24th after the killing of a Hindu religious leader. On Thursday, the Indian Government appealed to the federal Government to halt the violence.
Yesterday Bishop Nazir-Ali accused the state government in Orissa of being “completely ineffective”, explaining “Christians from other parts of India, let alone elsewhere, have not been allowed by the State authorities to bring relief to the afflicted and the Federal Government has been paralysed.”
Bishop Nazir-Ali said that several weeks ago he had offered his assistance to the UK Government for a peace and factfinding mission to Orissa. "Neither the Foreign & Commonwealth Office nor the Commonwealth Secretariat have taken up this offer," he revealed yesterday, adding: "Will the Indian Government now allow outside observers to see for themselves what has happened and what can be done about it?"
The bishop also denied claims by hardline Hindu groups in Orissa who say that Christian missionaries bribe or force Hindus to convert and are thus to blame for the recent violence. He said that Indian Christian missionaries working in the area had brought education, medicine and community assistance "to untouchables and tribals well beyond the pale of Caste Hinduism. Is it for this ‘crime’ that they are being punished?" he asked.
"The aim of their work has been service to their fellow human beings but love elicits love and if some people are becoming Christians, of their own free will, is this so unacceptable in secular and democratic India?
He called on the Indian Government to rein in extremist Hindu nationalists involved in the violence, saying: “The Government of India has a solemn responsibility to prevent violence, particularly against Muslims and Christians, by extremist Hindu nationalists. Now is the time to act and to clear this stain on the fair home of India.”