Fresh anti-Christian violence in India's Orissa state

Oct 2, 2008, 8:39 GMT

   New Delhi - Hindu rioters defied a curfew and torched Christian homes and a church in renewed violence against the community in India's eastern state of Orissa even as the police arrested 40 people on charges of arson, news reports said Thursday.

   At least 30 houses and a church were set afire in a village near Phulbani, the main city of the central Kandhamal district on Wednesday, the NDTV network reported.

   In an attempt to clamp down on the rioting, authorities had issued a curfew in the region over 300 kilometres west of state capital Bhubaneshwar after a Christian woman was killed and 12 people injured in Hindu-Christian clashes on Tuesday.

   Villagers told the PTI news agency that they had received anonymous threats that they would be attacked and the rioters fled before the security forces arrived at the scene.

   Meanwhile, 40 people, many of them activists belonging to Hindu organizations, were held in connection for their suspected involvement in Tuesday's clashes.

   The Orissa government, which has been flayed by the federal government for its inability in stemming the violence, said it will make further arrests to restore law and order.

   In New Delhi, the federal home ministry decided to rush in 1,000 additional paramilitary forces to check the violence in the state.

   The communal clashes in the region broke out on August 23 after the killing of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who was shot by unidentified gunmen.

   Saraswati's right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad organization, accused Christians to be responsible for the murder, a charge denied by Christian organizations. Saraswati was running a campaign in the region against conversion to Christianity.

   Since then, many Christian prayer halls and churches have been attacked and at least 32 people, mostly Christians, killed. Thousands of people have fled from their homes and are living in relief camps and the forests.

   Communally sensitive Kandhamal - with a population of around 600,000, including 150,000 Christians - has witnessed numerous clashes between Hindus and Christians.

   In a related incident, unidentified men pelted stones at a church in the Coimbatore city in southern Tamil Nadu state, the Times of India newspaper reported.

   It was the sixth attack of this kind on a church in Tamil Nadu in the aftermath of attacks in Orissa. Police arrested some locals in this connection, the report said.