BHUBANESWAR, India: The government yesterday deployed hundreds more federal policemen to eastern India after one person was killed and several injured in fresh clashes between Hindus and Christians triggered by religious conversions.
More than 700 federal policemen are being sent to Orissa state after the death in rural Kandhamal district following clashes between Christians and Hindus on Thursday. Several houses were also set on fire.
The violence came after a string of attacks on Christians in three Indian states that has left at least 20 people dead and dozens of churches damaged in the last month. Christians have responded with some violence in Orissa state.
More than 3,000 federal policemen have already been deployed in the region. Violence first erupted in Orissa after the killing of a Hindu leader linked to the main opposition Hindu extremist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and four others last month.
“We have moved seven more companies of paramilitary forces to the troubled areas,” Orissa’s Inspector General of Police in charge of law and order, Pradeep Kapur, said. The attacks on Christians in India have been condemned by Pope Benedict and Roman Catholic bishops have urged the European Union to treat persecution of Christians as a humanitarian emergency.
But violence has continued, especially in Kandhamal where thousands of Christians now live in government camps because their homes are destroyed or they are too fearful to return. Religious clashes have also been reported in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka states.
On Thursday, the federal government in New Delhi asked the Orissa state government to take quick steps to restore peace. The Orissa government was told that the continuing violence is “a matter of serious concern and cannot be allowed to continue,” the federal Home Ministry said in a statement.
A collage of faces — young students, leaders of religious minorities, Christian priests, nuns and others — gathered at the Jantar Mantar in the heart of New Delhi yesterday to protest the violence.
Holding banners, the protesters raised their voices against the vandalization of churches and attacks on Christians in Orissa, Karnataka and Madhya Pradesh.
