NEW DELHI, 28 December 2007 — Hundreds of federal police enforced a curfew in parts of eastern India yesterday after clashes between Hindus and Christians in which one person was killed and several injured.
Police said the clashes had ended but curfews remained in place in three towns in central Orissa.
Hindus ransacked and set on fire more than 30 churches and institutions — 11 torched in several areas of Kandhamal district on Wednesday.
With situation spinning out of control, two companies of Central Reserve Police Force were deployed to maintain calm. Expressing concern, state Home Minister Sriparkash Jaiswal said a team would be sent if the situation remained volatile. “We have to bring the situation under control even if strict action needs to be taken.”
Violence erupted when mobs led by Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) men set ablaze churches, convents and some houses belonging to Christians. Tribes are opposed to giving scheduled tribe status to Dalit Christians while Hindu leaders are against the conversion drive being undertaken by missionaries. “They want to convert people to Christianity and convert the country into a Christian land. We are opposed to that and that is the source of all disputes,” VHP leader Swami Laxmananand said.
The house of Christian leader Radhakant Nayak, who is also a member of the Upper House of Parliament, was attacked and torched by an angry mob in Kandhamal district.
Questioning the apathy shown by the state government toward such tension, Nayak told a television channel: “The state government has been saying they have sent forces, but on the ground we are getting to hear there is no force. The situation is still tense.”
Long-running tensions between the two groups in Orissa’s rural Kandhamal district came to a head on Christmas Eve, when fights broke out after Christians put up a temporary ceremonial arch to mark the holiday, police said.
Later in the day, Christians attacked and injured a Hindu leader known to resent Christians’ attempts to convert low-caste Hindus, according to police.
Fighting and rioting continued intermittently on Christmas day and Wednesday. Mobs set alight Hindu temples and churches, many of them huts of thatch, mud and stone. Rioters also attacked homes and government buildings.
A Christian man was killed during the fighting, police said. No one has been arrested so far, police said.
Hard-line Hindus, some linked to India’s main Hindu-nationalist grouping, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), have accused Christian priests of bribing poor tribespeople and low-caste Hindus to change their faith.
Christian groups say lower-caste Hindus who convert do so willingly to escape the highly stratified and oppressive Hindu caste system.
India’s constitution is secular, but most of its billion-plus citizens are Hindu. About 2.5 percent of Indians are Christians.
There have been attacks on Christians in the past in Orissa. In 1999, a Hindu mob killed Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two children by burning them in their car.
Several states ruled by the BJP have passed anti-conversion laws.
