Orissa's forgotten victims
Victims of anti-Christian violence in Orissa are too fearful to return home while their tormentors remain at large
By David Griffiths
11/23/2009 India (gurdian.co.uk)-"We cannot now return to the village as the murderers would be on the streets with more hatred and anger for us". So said a witness after testifying last month in a courtroom in Kandhamal district in India 's eastern state of Orissa, which was the scene last year of ferocious violence against Christians carried out by mobs incited by extremist Hindu nationalists. The case saw three men acquitted of hacking to death a non-Christian tribal leader who tried to stand up to the mobs, and burning to death an elderly widow. They were convicted for destroying evidence, but sent home on bail, pending appeal.
One such camp is called Shanti Nagar, which means "place of peace". It is home to 45 Catholic families and is the fifth place they have been since the violence erupted in their village 15 kilometres away in August 2008. First, they fled to an official government relief camp. After a month, they decided to travel the eight hours to the state capital, Bhubaneswar , where they were housed in a private relief camp for six months. The authorities then encouraged them to return to a relief camp in Kandhamal district and provided them with transportation, but deserted them in a marketplace in Ghumusar Udayagiri town. Here they sheltered for a month and were interviewed by a visiting BBC team. After that interview, they were moved to another government relief camp. When that relief camp closed, they were told that their village was too hostile to allow them to return, and they were given a few bags of rice and shifted to these tents beside a road.
There is no doubt that their village is indeed too hostile to allow them to return. At a peace meeting earlier this year, in the presence of government officials, extremists threatened to kill them if they should try to return as Christians. Conversion to Hinduism is the necessary prerequisite for peace.
