Times Of India
Kandhmal sees first burial in 45 days
9 Oct 2008, 0219 hrs IST, Anand Soondas,TNN Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
BHUBANESWAR/RAIKIA: Five men, surrounded by a posse of policemen, quietly went to a charred house in Tikawali, Kandhmal, on Wednesday, and scrape
d off a few bones lying scattered on the floor since August 24. At 1 pm, they put the remains in a coffin and buried it with a quick prayer session.
It was Kandhmal's first funeral after about 60 people were killed in communal violence. The rest of the survivors are awaiting administration's permission to send off their loved ones according to Christian rites.
Rasanand Pradhan had a paralytic stroke when he was just a boy and had beessn wheelchair-bound. On August 24, when a bloodthirsty mob converged at his house in Tikawali, he couldn't escape. The mob burned his house down with him inside. ''We felt very uneasy and sad all this while,'' said Rasanand's elder brother Motilal, an army man posted with a unit guarding India's international border at Suleiman Chowki, Fazilka (Punjab). ''We just got a part of his hip bone and head. His limbs were missing. There were five of us and the policemen, but my brother's soul will now rest in peace.''
Motilal had to petition everyone, from the SP to collector, asking for police protection so that he could bury his brother, Rasanand, the youngest of three siblings and 32 when he was killed. He got the permission last week.
''There were about 20 CRPF men and a small contingent from the Tikawali police post,'' he said, talking about the funeral. ''We had to hurry things up and catch a bus to Bhubaneswar, where we are in a relief camp. I had never imagined I would be forced to do such undignified things - being forced to complete funeral in 10 minutes''
Others, though, aren't so lucky. A priest in Raikia, Kandhmal, who insists he be called 'Rev Naik' as he too is still in hiding, said, ''People ran for their lives when the killings began soon after Laxmananda Saraswati's murder on August 23. We were compelled to leave the dead behind and directed our efforts towards protecting those alive. There are many bodies waiting for burial. People are afraid to come back from relief camps for the last rites. I don't know how long our dead will remain in this state.''
Something else also happened here after Christian villages were pillaged. Many say the marauders took the bodies of their victims away so that their relatives couldn't claim compensation. The government, after all, had made no provision to compensate the kin of those missing.
''Yes, it's true,'' said Jacob Pradhan, another priest in Phulbani. ''People didn't get a chance to bury the dead. How could they have when everyone's so scared of returning to their villages? Even now I am told every two days to embrace Hinduism or forget about returning to my village. I know of 33 people, in Tikawali, Baliguda, Raikia, G Udayagiri, whose bodies are strewn around, waiting for burials. Maybe now, after Motilal Pradhan took the bold step, others will follow.''
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Thu, 09/10/2008 - 7:57am Shave your head,curse christ for a home to live in Kandhamal:When will I get home
Orissa:
statements from the Maoists that they killed Swami Laxmananda. I do not know why the Maoists may have done it but they have repeatedly claimed responsibility. And yet we are the ones getting blamed, getting hit, our churches are getting burnt, Christians are being driven out. Why? ( Arch Diocese)
If there is a thing worse than being driven out of home, it is not knowing when or how to return; it is to have to confront the prospect of conversion from oustee to refugee.
posted in: Current Issue, Persecution, East India
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Wed, 08/10/2008 - 10:54pm More Christian houses set ablaze in Kandhamal
Orissa:Raikia
7th October 5 Christian houses were set ablaze by radicals in Baligada village Raikia police station area K Nuagaon Block
8th October-this afternoon around 3pm in the same village 25 Christian houses burnt, destroyed and people fled to forest
posted in: Current Issue, Persecution, East India
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Wed, 08/10/2008 - 4:37pm Two churches vandalised in Tamilnadu
Erode-Tamilnadu -8th Oct
In fresh attacks on Christian institutions in western Tamil Nadu, two churches were targeted at Erode early on Tuesday(7th Oct08). Both the incidents took place under the Kavindapady police limits.
In the first one around midnight, three persons on a motorcycle threw stones at a church at Perunthalaiyur, on the Kavindapady-Koohalur Road.
Sun, 05/10/2008 - 12:02pm Indian flag to be burnt in Mexico City
There will be a demonstration here in Mexico City, the India's tri-color flag will be burnt publicly in protest of the attacks against followers of Jesus Christ.
The Mexican people will also condemn publicly India's government and show their content of such activities by symbolic destruction of the devil.
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