Women Still Traumatized from Christmas Attacks in India
Psychological disorders persist in female Christians in Orissa state, study shows.
By Vishal Arora
NEW DELHI, June 20 (Compass Direct News) – Preliminary findings of an ongoing study on gender violence shows that female victims of attacks in Orissa state last Christmas season are struggling with post-traumatic disorders.
The study, conducted by local Christians and led by Dr. John Dayal, secretary general of the All India Christian Council, records accounts of premature births, sexual molestation and attempted rape during the violence that began on Christmas Eve and lasted for more than a week in Kandhamal district. The violence, allegedly led by extremists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council), left at least four Christians dead and 730 houses and 95 churches burned.
According to the study, at least seven Christian women victims are facing psychological disorders.
Sabita Digal, 30, from Barakhama village went insane after her close brush with the attackers. On Christmas day, a mob of around 200 Hindu extremists stormed the village and set the house of Christians on fire. Digal, along with other Christians, ran toward a jungle.
She fainted from fright and had to be assisted by the others to the jungle, where she remained without food or medicine. The study says that Digal, whose husband is poor and jobless, has been behaving abnormally since then.
Similarly, a 65-year-old nun, Sister Christa, and 30-year-old Anjali Nayak from the Mt. Carmel Convent in Balliguda, still have bouts of anxiety and depression. Lengthy counselling sessions with psychologists have yielded little improvement.
While Sister Christa and Nayak were decorating their church for Christmas, a mob came and set the building on fire. The two women, along with others, hid in a room, where they could see nothing but thick smoke.
Although all the women were finally able to escape, memories of the attack continue to haunt them. Nayak, who refused to go back to the convent in Balliguda and was therefore sent to a convent in Phulbani district, finds it difficult to sleep. She often shouts in the middle of the night, saying, “They are coming to kill us.”
In the same way, Sister Siba, Sister Hemanti Minz, Sister Rohini Pradhan and Sister Jerina Kollammaparambil of the Mt. Carmel Convent in Phulbani have not been able to go back to their normal daily routine since they witnessed attacks in their convent.
Further, Sasmita Sualsing, a 15-year-old orphan girl at a convent in Padangi and student, is unable to concentrate on her studies since she saw her church being vandalized and burned by the Hindu extremists.
How these cases will be handled, Dayal said, would be a test for the state administration and India ’s criminal justice system.
“For the Sangh Parivar (family of groups linked to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, India’s chief Hindu nationalist body),” he added, “the gender violence, thoroughly exposes all their pretence at respect for women, which they seem to have in the same measure as they have respect for the laws – zero.”
Many victims are still in the jungles fearing further physical attack, while hundreds of displaced Christians in Kandhamal remain in various relief camps set up by the state government.
Sexual Assaults
There were many unreported cases of attempted rape and molestation during the attacks, Dayal said.
“Even nuns suffered physical attacks in the Kandhamal violence,” Dayal told Compass, adding that he had asked the National Commission of Women to inquire into those incidents. He said he would send a detailed report to the Justice Basudev Panigrahi Enquiry Commission, which is investigating into the attacks.
At least two Christian women were raped by Hindutva (Hindu nationalist) extremists and were not willing to report it to police, Dayal said. Due to the stigma of rape in rural parts of India , many victims do not like to disclose or report it.
The study, however, highlights several cases of abuse of women.
On December 25, a group of extremists sexually assaulted a 16-year-old Christian girl, Kumari Sonali Digal, from Barakhama village. The incident took place in a jungle near Barakhama, where Christians had fled.
As Digal was running along with the other girls to the jungle, a nail pierced her foot and it started bleeding. Left behind, she had to spend the night alone. The following day, she decided to go to a village close by in search of drinking water. On the way, a group of Hindu extremists saw her and assaulted her sexually. One of the boys from the group also put vermilion on her forehead to mark her “conversion” to Hinduism.
The same day, another group of rioters tried to sexually assault five women, including two nuns, and a 17-year-old girl.
The five women, Sister Sujata, Sister Sitara Kujur, Jyosona Joni, Ranjita Digal and Padmini Pradhan, along with 17-year-old Rajani Ekka, were hiding under the staircase of the Mt. Carmel Convent’s building in Balliguda. The Hindu extremists had set the building on fire.
Although the women were choking on the smoke, they wanted to wait for the attackers to leave before they could move out. But rioters searching for Christians spotted the women. The attackers caught them and began trying to manhandle them with the intention of sexually assaulting them, but the women held each other and managed to flee.
Premature Births
According to the study, at least four Christian women gave premature births in abject conditions in jungles and without medical attention in the December cold.
A 23-year-old woman who was eight months pregnant, Jhunuta Digal, was in her father’s house in Barakhama village on Christmas day when the violence broke out. Her parents were not home, and she and her husband ran to save their lives. Due to the chaos, she was separated from her husband.
Alone in the Penukupudi jungle, she developed labor pains. The baby was born prematurely that night.
Likewise, 26-year-old Muktimeri Parichha from Ulipadar village, then eight months pregnant as well, also gave birth to a boy before her due date.
Early on Christmas day, Christians in Ulipadar ran to the Panagadu hills to escape the attacks. The Christians remained there till December 28 without food and water. During the period, Parichha delivered a baby boy. Though she had family members close at hand, there were no medical facilities or even a knife to cut the umbilical cord. The family had to use sharp stones to cut the cord.
After the birth, they wrapped the baby with leaves, as it was cold and there was no clean cloth available.
Another Christian woman from Ulipadar village, 26-year-old Kumudini Nayak, developed labor pains in a jungle in Turanipani village in neighboring Gajapati district, 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from Ulipadar, where she had fled with her family. A local villager gave them shelter, but she delivered a premature baby without any medical assistance.
Similarly, 27-year-old Manimala Pradhan from Bamunigam village delivered her baby before the due date. As she reached a nearby jungle with her family, she fainted from exhaustion. As there was nothing to keep her warm, the family members lit a fire with dry leaves.
She gave birth and remained without food or medical help for hours.
END
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Copyright 2008 Compass Direct News
Friday, June 20, 2008
Saturday, June 14, 2008
Orissa High Court retired Justice Basudev Panigrahi accepts demand to hold Enquiry Commission hearings in Kandhamal from 14th July 2008
PRESS STATEMENT
Bhubaneswar, June 14th 2008
Justice Basudev Panigrahi Judicial Commission extends deadline for filing affidavits in Kandhamal anti Christian violence to 5th July, hearings to begin in Phulbani from 14th July 2008
[The following is the text press statement made by Archbishop Raphael Cheenath this morning on behalf of the Christian community of Orissa after the first meeting of the Justice Basudev Panigrahi Commission enquiring into the anti Christian violence during Christmas week 2007 in Kandhamal district. Archbishop Cheenath, All India Christian Council Orissa president Rev Pran Parichha, Mr. Hemant Naik, and Dr John Dayal, Member, National Integration Council, Government of India, were among those who attended the meeting called by Justice Panigrahi to finalise procedural matters. Lawyers and Human Rights activists of the Human Rights Law Network, New Delhi, National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights, All India Christian Council, Justice and Peace Commission, Grassroots Process, Kui Dina Santhi O Nyaya Pratistha Mancha, Kandhamal Nari Jagran Samiti, and the Catholic and protestant Churches, were also present. Justice Basudev Panigrahi, heading the one-man Judicial Commission later extended the deadline for filing affidavits of victim and others in Kandhamal anti Christian violence to 5th July, hearings to begin in Phulbani from 14th July 2008. The earlier deadline was 30th June.]
----
The orchestrated and vicious violence against the innocent Christian community of Kandhamal during Christmas week of 2007 traumatised the victims of the district, and shocked the Christian community not just of Orissa or the rest of India, but of the world. For we had hoped that Orissa government would have learnt its lessons from the macabre burning to death of Graham Stuart Staines and his two young sons in 1991, and taken potent steps to contain and curb rabid communal elements whose hate campaigns had been proved to be at the root of those murders, so that such incidents were never repeated. These lessons were apparently not learnt.
After the 2007 serial arson, loot, destruction, murders, rape, molestation and terror, we had hoped for prompt action by the government to bring the culprits to book, and a compassionate and prompt procedure on the physical and economic rehabilitation and resettlement of the victims. We regret to put on record our deep disappointment with the progress made on issues of justice and rehabilitation by the district police and civil administration. The State government in Bhubaneswar cannot escape its responsibility in this matter.
We had demanded that the State set up a judicial commission headed by a sitting Judge of the Orissa High Court to go into the roots of the criminal conspiracy to eliminate Christians belonging to all castes, tribes and classes, from the Kandhamal district. We had also demanded an enquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigations or a Special Investigating Group which would have the credibility and the knowhow to fully unravel the conspiracy and the well-oiled hate machinery which carried out the violence in four days while the Kandhamal district was isolated from the rest of the state and the country, and did it under the eyes of an inept and bigoted District police apparatus.
The state government in its wisdom appointed the Commission under Mr. Justice B Panigrahi, a retired Judge of the Orissa High Court. In the interests of bringing justice to the aggrieved and victims people of Kandhamal, we agreed to cooperate with the Justice Panigrahi Commission, despite our original demand for a sitting Judge of the High Court. However, the late notifications by the commission, coupled with the reign of terror still prevailing in the villages and forests of Kandhamal, has made it difficult for all victims to be able to file their depositions and affidavits before the Panigrahi commission by the date specified and under the stringent formalities demanded by the notification.
OUR DEMANDS;
We have therefore moved the Union Government in New Delhi, the State Chief Minister in Bhubaneswar and Mr. Justice Basudev Panigrahi, on the following points:
1. We asked in at least three separate applications that Justice Panigrahi Commission extend the deadline for filing affidavits by 45 days, or up to 31 July 2008, to enable the victims more time. Simultaneously, we demanded that he give orders to the District and State police and civil administration to ensure and provide adequate security to the victims in their villages so they have the confidence to approach the criminal justice system and the Commission with their grievances in the hope of procuring justice. We also demanded that hearings be held first of the victims, and preferably as close to their homes as possible in various villages in the affected blocks of Kandhamal, and only thereafter statements of the government and then rival contentions. We are happy the deadline has been extended by three weeks, and that hearings will also be held in Kandhamal.
2. We have urged the Chief Minister of Orissa the Government of Orissa to expand the terms of reference of the one-man Mr. Justice Basudev Panigrahi commission to also include the issue of criminal neglect and ineptitude by the district authorities in matters of relief and rehabilitation. We want the Commission to also go into why the District Collector banned Church and other human development groups from reaching aid to the worst affected victims who had to live in forests or under tents, whose wives and daughters were given one dhoti even if there were three female members of the families, and whose children , even if infants, had to eat bad quality rice made in a gruel for want of anything else, whose old and ill parents or children died for want of medical attention in the camps, and whose houses are still half built and without roofs even as the Monsoon rains have come to Orissa.
3. We have asked the National Women’s Commission to probe in depth the extent of gender violence. Even our own preliminary reports of interviews conducted by women Supreme Court lawyers have unearthed cases of rape, sexual molestation, sexual threats, and sexual harassment in several villages of Kandhamal from 24 December 2007 till now. It is a matter of shame that girls and young women cannot go to school for fear of sexual violence on the forest roads in several villages.
4. We have requested the Union and State governments to investigate why employment is not being given to villagers under NREGA and Prime Ministers Rural Road and other projects in many, if not most areas. Six months after the violence, most Christians of the violence affected blocks of Kandhamal are without gainful employment and many of them have had to utilize whatever little money they were given out of the government’s house building funds – which have not been given in fully, anyway, to buy food and clothes for their families.
5. We have to our shock discovered that the Kandhamal district civil and police administration are helpless in front of Lakshmananand Saraswati and his henchmen who have been named by many victims in their FIRS before the police and as the persons directly responsible for the violence. The police are helpless and some of their officers are in connivance with this man who is moving around freely under police escort, spewing hate and venom against minority communities, assaulting traders and interfering in the livelihood of people with impunity and with contemptuous disregard for the rule of law. We have once again called upon the government ensure that its writ runs in Kandhamal and criminal action is taken against this man.
6. We have called for an immediate end to the witch-hunt that has been launched against Dalits and tribals in government service who are being thrown out of their jobs and even arrested under false charges and fabrications on their caste or tribe status at the instigation of vested interests. This is without prejudice to the right of the individuals, and our right, to move higher judicial fora for redress.
7. We have also reserved our right to move Orissa High Court and the Supreme court, as deemed fit, for adequate rehabilitation assistance to the, compensation for loss of livelihood and economic boycott of Christians who are self employed.
8. We congratulate the brave women of Kandhamal for taking the imitative in starting the reconciliation and peace process with four rallies and their condemnation of communalism being spread at the criminal and political thugs.
Released to the media for publication/broadcast/telecast by
Dr John Dayal, 9811021072 email: johndayal@vsnl.co, catholicunion@gmail.com
For further details, pleased contact: Fr Mrutyunjay, Bishops House, Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India, Mobile: 09437644796 email mjaya_bbsr@yahoo.co.uk;
crcdc@satyam.net.in
Monday, June 9, 2008
Kandhamal, Orissa, Updste 9 June 2008
John Dayal Kandhamal Orissa update 9 June 08
Of continuing Gender Violence, bureaucratic indifference in rehabilitation, and the Government silence on rebuilding churches destroyed in Sangh Parivar arson
I have been to Orissa, including Kandhamal, seven times [six times to the district] since 28th December 2008. My last visit ended two days ago. Each visit has been of up to a week, more or less. The next time I go, I am formally going to request the head of the Bhubaneswar Fire Brigade if he can accompany me on the trip to the villages of Kandhamal and let us know how many of the burnt houses can be rebuilt without starting from scratch after tearing down the charred timber ad the scorched bricks.
The people are deeply disappointed and saddened by the lethargic and insensitive, almost inhuman, response of the Central and State governments on all issues of the Kandhamal tragedy.
The people are also deeply disappointed at the response of civil society, as without its pressure and moral backing, it is difficult to wrest justice from the authorities who seemed determined to remain callous at best and absolutely bigoted and partisan at worst. The national media remains silent, barring perhaps the occasional dispatch in New Delhi Television, NDTV. A very few Human Rights groups are helping; the most notable is the Human Rights Law Network, New Delhi, apart from the Christian Law Network and the lawyers retained by the all India Christian Council and the Catholic Archdiocese of Bhubaneswar-Cuttack under the towering leadership of septuagenarian Archbishop Raphael Cheenath
The police are their most aggressive worst. But the rehabilitation and resettlement programme is no better.
The monsoons are setting in, and still up to four hundred families are without a roof over their head. The government has been doling out the money is driblets. The grant for totally destroyed houses is fifty thousand rupees, and half or less for partially destroyed houses. But half burnt houses cannot be rebuilt. They have to be first razed to the ground and then rebuilt, and the government does not recognize this. Anyway, even the fifty thousand rupees is not enough. Relief officers have privately told me with steel and asbestos, sheets, cement and bricks and a bit of wood, the total comes to eighty-five thousand. This means that unless the dole is raised, we will have half built houses when the rains come. There is no option but to move the courts – the Supreme Court if that becomes necessary, to get the government to give the money.
Anyway, it is not houses but homes that are destroyed. It takes more than mere money to rebuild a life in a new house. In addition, half a year of labour has been lost; there is no means of livelihood. These are not big time farmers we are talking about, these Dalits, Kui-speaking `Domangs’ and Kondhs, who have lost everything they ever had. Most of them actually had not enough land to sustain a family in these highlands where the monsoons are the only source of irrigation, and manual labour on government projects the solitary source of income.
But there is no answer from the government. There is no scheme on the anvil. It is becoming increasingly clear to the people that justice can come only from the superior courts. The people may also have to approach the Supreme Court because Christians are being discriminated against in rehabilitation and resettlement -- while the few Hindu victims have been given plots on tribal tracts even if they are Dalits, Dalit Christians are not getting land with the authorities telling them that their old houses were built on tribal land and they cannot get that land back under the existing laws.
In the criminal cases, there is only now that information is coming out, and shyly, about the extent of gender violence, including incidents of rape, molestation, and assault. Even now, many girls particularly in the Brahminigaon area cannot go to school for fear of molestation after threats have been received from local goons and political activists. An application is being filed with the National and State Women’s Commissions on this. A full and detailed probe is called for, and a sensitive counselling programme designed in the medium and long term, specially for teenagers and young women. The victims are grateful for the visit of Sr Mary Scaria of the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary, a Supreme Court advocate, and then of Teesta Setalvad with the Impendent Tribunal which unearthed the magnitude of gender victimization.
The economic violence, ostracisation, and alienation question is equally important. Christians who had started making a life for themselves through running shops and self employment were particular targets. This was confirmed during the second visit of the national Minorities Commission in April. The Christians are still facing a sort of social and economic boycott. For the poor who were working as labour in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme [NREG] and Prime Minister’s Rural Roads programmes, jobs are either not available because work has stopped, or hard to come by. There is also discernible partisanship in employment, we are told by the victims. The State government seems not to have noticed this at all. This calls for an urgent enquiry by concerned central authorities as government of
The police remain perversely bigoted. In Brahminigaon police station, they are actively trying to manufacture and prove a link between the Naxalite and the Christians; they are also actively progressing on the cases relating to the burning of the few houses of Hindus in this area. But there is no progress reported at all in catching the culprits who burned the churches and the houses. Even the Balliguda sub collector told me that the main man responsible, Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, cannot be restrained or arrested because such are the orders of the higher authorities and the State government. He and his henchmen can be seen in all parts of the district.
The people have repeatedly called for probity, equality, and an absolute secular approach by the administration on issues of justice and the enforcement of law and order. Church unity remains of essence, particularly in areas of mobilising defence of Christians arrested or implicated on fabricated charges, and in coordinating rehabilitation, Human Rights Law Network and other lawyers, some of them volunteers, have helped people prepare their affidavits for the Justice Panigrahi Commission, but it will take several more weeks before every victim can do so. Many reports still remain to be filed in the police stations for want of legal adequate legal aid.
The Justice Panigrahi Enquiry Commission is holding its first meeting in
The path to peace and reconciliation, not surprisingly, has been shown by the brave women of Kandhamal who have sunk all ethnic differences to come together to challenge Lakshmananda. A meeting led by the women collected as many as six thousand people in Balliguda a few days ago. The sub collector and the police tried to dissuade them, banning speeches and posters and slogans, but the woman marshalled the people brilliantly. One after the other, speakers many of them Hindu and several of them women, said they were determined to challenge and defeat the forces of religious bigotry exemplified by the groups of the Sangh Parivar and Lakshmananda.
Meanwhile, we are informed on good authority that the Sangh Parivar is preparing for more violence in another area of Orissa – near and in the Sundargarh district which abuts Jharkhand.
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