ICC Note:
Seven Christian men in Kandhamal, India has been sentenced to life in prison after being convicted of the murder of a Hindu extremist group leader, Laxmananda Saraswati. The murder of Saraswati is what sparked off the 2008 anti-Christian riots that swept across India’s Kandhamal district. Mobs of Hindu radicals marched from village to village, driving Christians from their homes, destroying their property and killing the Christians that refused to renounce their Christian faith. Justice in many of these cases still has not been achieved for Christians. Yet, seven Christian men, rounded up almost at random, were convicted by a court in Kandhamal on September 30 for the murder of Saraswati with little to no evidence. How long will the injustices for the Christian community in Kandhamal continue?
10/8/2013 India (Christian Today) – Seven Indian Christians have been sentenced to life imprisonment after being unjustly convicted of the murder of a militant Hindu leader in 2008, an incident that sparked horrific anti-Christian violence in Orissa state.
A court in the Kandhamal district of Orissa handed down the sentence, along with a 10,000 rupee fine, to each of the seven on 3 October. A senior Christian leader described the verdict as a “travesty of justice”.
Laxmananda Saraswati and four of his aides were gunned down at his spiritual base in Jaleshpata by a large mob on 23 August 2008. A Maoist group claimed responsibility for the attack almost immediately, but militant Hindus blamed Christians instead and turned violently against them.
In the ensuing persecution, around 90 Christians were killed and thousands more injured. Over 56,000 were left homeless as houses were looted and torched, while nearly 300 churches and many other Christian properties were destroyed. Christians were told, “Come back as Hindu or don’t come back at all!”
Only a handful of people have ever been convicted of involvement in the violence, and the authorities disregarded thousands of complaints.
Yet as early as January 2009, only months after the violence, the seven Christians were arrested and charged with Saraswati’s murder. Despite there apparently being no evidence against them, they then languished in prison for nearly five years.
Special tribunals had been established following the carnage to speed up the legal process, but Christians say that these have used every procedural loophole to defer the hearings. The cases were finally transferred to an ordinary court, which convicted the men on 30 September.
The BJP, the principal Hindu nationalist party in India, welcomed the verdict. A spokesman said that the investigation should continue until all the conspirators were caught.
But Sajan George, President of the Global Council of Indian Christians, denounced the court’s decision as unjust.
He said: “It is shameful that innocent fathers of families have been locked in jail for almost five years and subjected to trials for a crime they did not commit”.
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