Police watch as goons enforce bandh

Kandhamal situation report 8th July 08 Tumidibandh incident

A Fact finding report by John Dayal, 9th July 2008
VHP leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati had ordered removal of Christian orphanage four days before his gang destroyed it in Tumidibandh, Kandhamal, Orissa


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PREAMBLE: I was in the recently refurbished seminary in the Block headquarter town of Balliguda in Kandhamal district -- the building had been pillaged and almost burnt down during the Christmas 2007 anti Christian violence in the area – speaking in a post lunch session to senior theology students when a teacher burst into the room to tell us fresh valence had broken out and three church buildings – a Jesuit home, their Chapel, and a orphanage -- had been attacked in the adjoining block of Tumidibandh, 120 km from the district capital of Phulbani. A near curfew situation became apparent immediately in the small market town, a situation which we have seen in recent years across the country where shopkeepers, smelling trouble off the grapevine long before official information trickles in, hastily put down their shutters, vehicles just vanish off the road as if by magic and a combination of ill-kempt policemen, home guards and young men on motorcycles assume charge.

My hosts were concerned about my own security – I have the dubious distinction of having the state Bharatiya Janata Party and the Vishwa Hindu Parishad demanding, by turns, my arrest, my expulsion or a ban on my entry into the Kandhamal district or the state, perhaps because I sort of immediately write down what I see and what I learn from eye witnesses, victims and government officials, preferably within hours of an incident taking place. Recorded truth is unpalatable as it almost always challenges and contradicts the concoctions dished out by the Sangh Parivar spokesman to a local media that is either so gullible as to be unprofessional, or is a party to the political beliefs and designs of the BJP and its sister organisations. A harsh charge, but tragically too true and so easily substantiated in Kandhamal and Bhubaneswar. They advised me to return to my camp a dozen kilometers away. I was struck there for the next 24 hours, all because of rumours, four illegally felled Sal trees, and a mischievous grapevine which now has the district in its grip.

The mechanics of this private curfew were glaringly clear within a few minutes. There is but one direct road that connects market towns such as Brahminigaon, now attracting global infamy as the site of the Christmas desecrations, Darringbadi, the Switzerland they say of Orissa, Balliguda and other townships all the way to the border of Koraput. Somewhere between Balliguda and Tumidibandh, the next sizable population, is the ashram of the self styled Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, the mastermind of the anti Christian pogrom in Orissa and a leader of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad who has taken an oath to rid the region of all those who are not Hindus, and who do not obey his dictat on how they live their daily lives, including what their children must study and what food they can, or cannot eat, and to hell with their lifelong dietary habits.

This is an ashram with a few hundred young girls and women who are taught Sanskrit and a few of the martial arts. At the swami’s call, they come out, squat on the road while their male colleagues chop down two trees on their side of the ashram’s boundary walls. All vehicles come to a grinding halt. Pedestrians and motorcyclists who get caught by the swiftness of the operation are given a simple test to prove their faith, and their loyalty to the swami. They are asked to recite the 'gayatri' mantra. If they do, and thereby pass the test, they are told as loyal Hindus they should extend moral support to the road closure and stay back for three hours. If they cannot, they are given the thrashing of their lives.

I have met several Christian youth who could not recite the Mantra and were beaten up – by the young women, and beaten up bad. Over some time, a few unfortunate Muslim youth – and there are but a handful of Muslims in this region -- have had to suffer the further ignominy of being stripped so their faith could be ascertained from the fact of their circumcision. The police maintain a discreet distance from the site; launch their own patrols and checkpoints far from the Ashram.

Soon, the stray policeman or two made their way to the Seminary, and later to most Christian establishments. As usual, it was too little, too late. Over the next thirty-six hours, the police could not guarantee safe movement even of emergency vehicles during the district `bandh’.

The incident had taken place on 8th July. It was early in the morning of 10th July that we could as an investigating team finally come to Tumidibandh from Balliguda in two jeeps, crossing the stretch in front of the Ashram of Lakshmanananda, where the aforesaid two " sal" trunks, now pushed to the side of the road, spoke of the impunity with which the man defies forest laws, fells rare timber, and enforces his writ where the rule of law should run.

The members of my team where Fr Vijay Naik, who heads the Ecumenical Fellowship of Christians of the District, Professor Fr Prabodh Pradhan, who heads the Balliguda Seminary, Fr Chellam Thomas, and Mr. Hemant Naik ,a social activist and local expert who has been acting as my interpreter since e December 2007. We could meet almost all victims, residents of the village of Tumidibandh which has about 220 households consisting of both Tribal and Dalits, and representing every variety of faith, Christian, Hindu, and traditional, police and other officials. The following is our report:

THE VHP CHARGE: Lakshmanananda Saraswati, who figures in over 100 affidavits filed before the Justice Basudev Panigrahi commission which begins hearings on 14th July 2008 in Phulbani, as the mastermind and financier of the hate campaigns and violence against religious minorities, made the following allegation as enumerated again at a press conference on 10th July as to why he called a Bandh and blocked traffic. Saraswati said his assistant, one Madhu Baba, and some other followers had heard that a cow had been slaughtered in Malicmadi village of Tumidibandh Block, and when they went to investigate, the younger baba was manhandled. He further charged that him followers had discovered plastic pouches with animal flesh purportedly that of a cow in the refrigerator in the kitchen of the Jesuit house about two kilometers away from the village. His followers then ransacked the kitchen and some rooms, desecrated Chapel, broke the Holy Cross as also a fiber glass large statue of St Francis Xavier, before going down the road to smash the two large huts that went for an orphanage and hostel for 40 Christian boys and girls. The swami himself went to the police station and demanded the arrest of Christians as well as of the Priests.

THE INVESTIGATIONS:

Our inspection of the Daily Diary of the Tumidibandh Police station, headed by Orissa Police Sub inspector Madhusudhan Janasmta [mobile phone number 09437885599] revealed two notings;

The first was Case no. 30 of 2008 under sections 341, 323, 379, 506 of the Indian Penal Code read with Section 7 of the [Anti} Cow Slaughter Act. It said the incident took place at 10.15 in the morning of 8th July 2008, the complainant was L. N. Saraswati himself, and the accused he had named were ``Villagers of Malicpadi, not far from the police station. The second case, number 31, was under sections 452, 427, 379, 379 and 34 of the Indian Penal Code for damage to the church properties, and the culprits named were “Five persons of L Saraswati.”

Saraswati’s charges were that the cow slaughter led to spontaneous reaction and houses were damaged by people who discovered beef in them.

We interviewed over twenty people in the Malicpada village, among them men and women, people owing allegiance to the Congress party, the Biju Janata Dal, which rules in the state together with the Bharatiya Janata party. The people were Hindu Panos, or Dalits, Christian Panos and a few Tribals. To a person, they deposed that there had been never any community discord in the village despite their various ethnic, religious and political identities. They said traditionally, both Tribals and Panos of all religious persuasions ate beef, cow or buffalo, but there had been no slaughter of cattle in recent times in the village, and certainly not this year as the VHP was alleging. Mr. Gajapati Mandal, the head of the local Congress unit who acted as the chief spokesperson said the Superintendent and deputy superintend of police and officials of the Collectorate had interrogated them for many hours asking them to show the place where a cow had been killed. “No cow was killed and therefore there no place to show the police officers,” the villagers said. They charged that if some plastic pouches of meat had been taken to the police station by men of Saraswati, they may have got the meat from elsewhere to create a scene.

Mullick also pointed out something which was self evident. The Jesuit house was far away, down the main road and then into a lane just behind the area Forest Division office which has a strong presence of officials. How come the VHP men mad e beeline for the Christian buildings if they had not made a plan beforehand. The police have not said they discovered any flesh anywhere.

That it was not a spontaneous outburst of Hindu fervor became apparent on the main crowing where the Bhagban orphanage is situated. It was set up some years ago by a retired teacher and pastor, Mr. Bhagban Pradhan and after his death, is run by his wife Mohini with the assistance of her daughter and a nephew. Mohini said our days earlier; Lakshmanananda Saraswati had come on one of his numerous trips to the area. He had stopped in front of the Orphanage – nothing more than one semi permanent structure, two long huts which constitute the boys and girls’ dormitories, and a third one as the kitchen. He was annoyed that the orphanage board was right on the road. Saraswati alighted from his SUV and then told Mohini “This Christian hostel should not remain in the middle of the village” on the roadside. That was on 4th July 2009.

“On 8th July at 3 p.m. 15 to 20 people came, armed with staves and weapons, shouting slogans such as “”Kill them, Destroy house”. Mohini said they abused the women and then attacked the cluster of huts of the orphanage. At that time, there were 18 children in the orphanage, four of them girls, the youngest not yet six years of age. “We ran into the forest. There was no other place to go. Eventually we and the children walked 15 kilometers through the forest to reach another village where the children are now staying,” Mohini Pradhan, a frail widow, said.

At the Jesuit house, called Dibyanaugraha, built in 2000 AD, the priests were not home. The Parish Priest, Fr Cornelius, had gone to Jamshedpur some days ago. The assistant Parish Priest, Fr Praful Barla, a young clergymen appointed a few weeks earlier, and who assists in two churches in the region, was staying in the other church. The only person in the house was the cook, 40 year old Jomoj Naik of Kurtumgarh who had been working for the Jesuit fathers for 12 years, even before the new church was built, and who in a nearby village with his wife and children. He had come to the house to feed the three Alsatian dogs which were tied up in the day in their kennel behind the house
As the solitary eye witness, Jomoj Naik said “I came to the house as usual at 6 a.m. Fr Praful Barla left at 9;10 for Balliguda to meet the Tehsildar and other officials for permission to build on the land the Church had bought. I made the usual breakfast for the fathers, a vegetarian one. We do not stock meat in the fridge. When asked, I buy mutton from the local butcher, Gore Naik, or chicken from another man. For the dogs, we give them rice mixed with vegetables or raw eggs.

“I fed the dogs, locked the gate ad went home for my own breakfast. I was back in the Jesuit house when at about 2 pm I heard the dogs barking furiously in the kennel. I then saw about 15 or twenty people come through the gate. They had picked up a pick-axe from the compound and they and iron rods with them. They broke open the front grill. By this time, I was frightened, and an opened the wide grill door and ran out to the mangos grove to the parish church some distance away and narrated the violence to my friend, farmer Saninga Bismajhi.

“I and my friend later took courage to return to the Jesuit house at about 2.45 p.m. I saw the damage, the desecration of the chapel with the Cross broken and the bible thrown away. After some time, some people, apparently from Balliguda came with a cameraman. He said he was a pressman, and wanted to know if beef was stored in the house. I said no.

“I then went to teacher Cyprian Mondol and told him the incident. I, my son Brahma Naik, friend Rrudirekant Digal a social worker of the New Apostolic Church of the village, went towards the police station. I left my son behind at the canal side ensure the police duration. In front of the police station, we met the Tehsildar, Manoj Kumar Padhi. The sub-inspector of police in charge did not register my complaint, nor did he listen to me. He kept me waiting from 3 pm. to early morning 2 a.m. I asked or food and eater, but it was not given.

“Instead, the officer in charge of the police station kept on scolding me in harsh language, abusing me for saying there were 15 or more people who attacked the Jesuit church,. He said he wanted me to say there were only five people who had come to the house. I was finally allowed to go after I pleaded that I was hungry and I had to go and feed the dogs who ere also hungry.”

The experience of the Jesuit priests, Fr Praful Barla, was no different from that of his cook. The sub inspector of police insisted that the priest say only five persons had come to his house and chapel in his absence.

It was much later, when the fact finding team went to the police station, and later met the Sub divisional police officer, that the police changed the figure of attackers from five to fifteen.

The Jesuit Fathers said they had some inkling of impending trouble. They said when they were at Balliguda in the office of the revenue inspector for the land issue, the officer told them he had heard there would be a road blockade at 3 p.m.

After spending four hours in the police station, the village, the orphanage an talking to senior police officers, it was quite obvious to us that there was a deliberate attempt to provoke the people of the village who had been spurning the political advances of the VHP and had maintained communal unity and harmony during the December 2007 violence.

It was also quite obvious the local police, particularly the sub inspector, was under tremendous pressure from the VHP to do their will. His notings inn the police diary, his tone when speaking of the VHP leader and his repeated attempt even in our presence to coerce the cook and the Jesuit fathers made that clear. In fact it was the presence of the Sub divisional police office and the fact finding team which eventually made him correctly record the statement of the cook.

It is still not clear -- the police offer no explanation -- why they could not restore law and order and clear the roads. There were only four trees which were blocking the road, and a handful of VHP activists. The police made no effort to prevent activists from forcing people to close shops as far as Nuagoan, 40 kilometers away, where a handful of people even stopped the car of a district official. No forest officer could tell us why there are no cases against people felling government owned and protected timber.

Above all, even though VHP men came to the police station saying they were carrying with them meat they had taken from the Jesuit house, the police say they do not know who attacked the residence and chapel of the Christian priests.

There, of course, have been no arrests in the case. The attackers who made 18 boys and girls of the orphanage run into the forest, who shattered the peace of the village, pillaged the Jesuit residence and desecrated the Chapel remain beyond the pale of law.

The roads of Kandhamal are free only for the SUV of Lakshmanananda Saraswati ad his goons, and for the police who follow him as bodyguards in another jeep.

Released to the Media by John Dayal

Gender violence in the hills of Kandhamal

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

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.]
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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

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 28^th 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 India’s funding is involved.

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 Bhubaneswar on 14^th June. Patently there is need to set up some sort of a coordination committee both in the Kandhamal district and in Bhubaneswar-Cuttack.

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.

Abortion in an Orissa refugee camp, houses without roofs and a single- track police investigation

Kandhamal Orissa Update 27 May 2007

Abortion in a refugee camp, houses without roofs and a single- track police investigation

From John Dayal

Remember those two infant boys who born in the forests of Kandhamal district in Orissa during Christmas 2007 in a Nativity script so horribly rewritten by marauding gangs of the Sangh Parivar?

I am happy to report that both boys, now five months old, are doing well in their Ulipodara village near Brahminigaon, which was attacked on Christmas night. I visited them last fortnight and saw them in the arms of their young mothers. Mercifully child Yesudas, appropriately named by his mother Mukti Parichha, and Kumidini’s still unnamed baby boy, show no signs of the trauma. Their mothers and the rest of the village are, however, still in a state of shock.

It is not that many houses still do not have a roof, or that the followers of the self styled Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati are still trying to build a temple just a tree shadow away from their desecrated and burned church – the goons were chased away by the police, but have threatened to come again -- or that pubescent girls no longer go to the school where they are being teased even by other girls, or threatened with rape on the road.

It is also because the local officers have told the men they will get not get any jobs, not even as coolies and manual workers in the government’s much touted National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme or the stellar Prime Minister’s Gramin [rural] Road Scheme. It does not matter that many of the young men are educated and deserve better. The officers say unless the government declares there is total peace, the work on the roads will not resume in their area. That is it.

I was once again in Kandhamal this month, trying to facilitate an Independent Tribunal that is investigating the Christmas week anti Christian violence in the district. Convened at my request by the famed Mumbai Human rights activist Ms Teesta Setalvad, it was headed by another legendary activist, Mr. Justice Hosbet Suresh, formerly of the Bombay High Court. His colleagues, apart from Ms Setalvad, were Mr. Justice Kolse Patil, who resigned from the Bombay high court at the height of his judicial career to fight for the human rights of Maharashtra’s peasants, and former Gujarat Director General of Police Mr. Sreekumar, IPS, who had exposed the RSS nexus with the top brass of the police under Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi in the mass murder of Muslims in the state in February-March 2002.

A public Tribunal with higher credibility is difficult to imagine.

Providing them local assistance were Rev Pran Parichha and his son Ashish from Cuttack, grassroots Kui activist and social scientist Hemant Naik from Bhubaneswar, and Catholic Social Forum founder Joe Dias of Mumbai.

The Independent Tribunal toured the area extensively, visited refugee camps, met with officials, and held public hearings in a school building in Balliguda, the block head quarters at the heart of the district, and close to Barakhama, which had borne the brunt of the violence and still looks like a war zone. I understand from Ms. Teesta Setalvad that the Tribunal will write to the State government of Orissa to seek answers to questions arising from their tour and the public hearings and then will release their report to the public.

Ms. Teesta Setalvad’s womanly presence in the Barakhama refugee camp during their visit may well have saved the life of young Rashmi, the daughter of Suniya Digal of Tikarbari village. Rashni’s story also narrates, as nothing can, the crisis not just in the refugee camp or even in the Kandhamal district, but in Orissa itself where an utter absence of governance coupled with rampant corruption has left much of the state bereft of the benefits that have to other parts of the country in the decades since Independence in 1947.

Rashmi is about 16 years old, and was married last year. She came to the camp with her family after her house was burnt. She lives in a tent with her family in the camp set up in the high school at Barakhama village. She took ill with malaria, rampant in the camp, some days ago. The doctor did not check her properly, and prescribed a strong anti-malarial drug. Rashmi was apparently 16 weeks pregnant. She aborted. Her husband fled, leaving her with her parents.

No camp official bothered. The men don’t care, and there are no women health workers around anyway. The Catholic Sisters who occasionally visit the camp also seem to have missed out on the young girl suffering silently with acute stomach cramps and high fever.

That is how Ms. Teesta Setalvad discovered her. As a woman and a mother, she knew at a glance just exactly what was wrong. The symptoms were clear. She called me and told me to rush Rashmi to a hospital, any hospital. She had had an abortion, Ms Setalvad said, and was on the brink of septicemia, or blood poisoning, unless a gynecologist had a look at her immediately and evacuated the remains of her pregnancy.

I spoke with the camp authorities. They seemed unmoved, but when I insisted, they said they would shift her to the Balliguda block hospital. This was around noon.

At around 5 in the evening, Fr Basant Kumar Digal, the Catholic priest who I had requested to ensure that the girl was indeed taken to the hospital, came to me in the Balliguda hearings of the Independent Tribunal to tell me of his experience in the block Hospital. The camp officers took hours to bring the girl to the hospital. The doctor was at home and did not want to come. He would tell me later that he had gone home for lunch. When he did come, he said the girl’s family had to buy all medicines. Fr Digal bought the medicines for her.

When I reached the hospital, Rashmi was lying outside the labour room on three chairs. The doctor told me she had had her uterus evacuated and was doing fine. But she needed a malaria test. It would cost Rupees Seventy-five. I asked him why one had to pay in a government hospital for parent brought from the refugee camp. He said these things cost money. The government medicine was no good. I paid the money, and then persuaded, if I may use the word, to get the technician to take a blood test. I also eventually persuaded the doctor to shift Rashmi to a ward and to a bed. By late evening, she was transferred to a dirty bed, with linen that had not been changed for a week or so it looked. The hospital itself looked it had not been cleaned for a week, nor painted for years. And this is the best hospital in the area.

Medicare in the camp, and elsewhere, is a joke, unless one is willing to pay standard rates. Some time ago, during an earlier visit, I had come across the case of an older woman who died because her family could not buy the drugs the camp doctor had prescribed for her. And three men have died two of them of wounds sustained in the Christmas attacks. A child also died in the camp inmates told me. The government officials do not want to speak of deaths, autopsies, or medico legal cases.

In Brahminigaon, the police are spending much, if not all, of the time trying to prove that Maoist extremists have been running around with the Christians. Investigations are in full swing to find out who torched houses of Hindus in Odiya-sahi in Brahminigaon. There is no news if anyone is following up the cases of houses burnt in the Christian-sahi in the next lane. There is also no information about the police progress in tracing the whereabouts the masterminds who plotted the widespread arson which razed more than 100 churches, convents, schools, hospitals and medical centres run by Christian organisations.

There is, however, official news that the government dole will not be able to put a roof over the houses now being built in Barakhama for the Christians. Local officers tell me that even after the full amount of Rupees Fifty Thousand is given to rebuild the totally burnt down houses, each family will be about Thirty thousand rupees short for the steel truss and the asbestos sheet roofs. They tell me that the Church could help put a roof over the houses.

And anyway, at least half a dozen families will not be given houses at all because they had homes on tribal land, and they cannot go back, officers say, because non tribals are not allowed t build on tribal land.

This nice rule has apparently been waived, or ignored, for some others who are not Christians in the Brahminigaon area, we discover. No one is available to explain how religion comes in the way of getting a roof, or getting a home.

But that is the story of Kandhamal.

Lakshmananda Saraswati, the local Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader, is the only one who seems not to have a worry. Senior officials admit they have been told not to do anything about him though he is named even by the police in cases of arson and burning of churches several times in the last two decades. He also is accused of fomenting the hate campaign against Christians and Muslims in the region, and for masterminding the attacks. “We will have more trouble if we do anything about him,” a senior district official admits to us. “So we have given him armed bodyguards and a jeep so at least we know where he is,” he adds.

I had a near encounter with this powerful man. As we were travelling from Darringbadi to Balliguda, Saraswati’s convoy was coming from the other direction. He was seated and a deep red SUV, a huge saffron triangular flag on a long staff, tied to the front bumper of the vehicle, tearing into the wind. His SUV sped past as we slowed down. The police bodyguards, armed with automatic weapons, followed him in their jeep. They vanished along the road, behind the next hill.

Justice Panigrahi, who heads the one-man commission, has given time till the end of May to all those who want to testify before him. It is reported that the commission will meet on 15 June or so to decide its modalities and procedures.

But in the hills of Kandhamal, with refugees still traumatised there is just not sufficient time, and grossly insufficient security, for the victims to file their affidavits in far away Cuttack.

I am among those who have filed applications before the Justice Panigrahi Commission that it needs to give the victims more time and security so they can file their affidavits. My application requests him to extend the last date till 15 July 2008 by when hopefully the people will have roofs over their heads and the calm they need to narrate their trauma in the legalese that the commission seeks.

Independent Tribunal concludes hearings on Kandhmal, Orissa, anti Christian violence

Independent Tribunal On Kandhamal Violence

Nirat, Juhu Tara Road, Mumbai 400 049

Camp office: Dr Pran Parichha, Kanika Road, Tulsipur, Cuttack 753 008

Members of the Tribunal

Mr. Justice Hosbet Suresh

Mr. Justice Kolse Patil

Mr. R. B. Sreekumar, IPS, Director General of Police [Retd.] Gujarat,

Ms Teesta Setalvad

Facilitation:

Dr Pran Parichha [943709714], Mr. Joseph Dias, Mr. Hemant Nayak

Convener:

Dr John Dayal, Member, National Integration Council, Govt of India

09811021072 johndayal@vsnl.com



URGENT

Bhubaneswar, 17 May 2008

Transcript excerpts of press meeting by the Independent Tribunal on Kandhamal on return of Justices Hosbet Suresh, Kolse Patil, Ms Teesta Setalvad and RB Sreekumar, IPS Retd after Public hearings in Kandhamal district

----------

--War footing required in Rehabilitation Relief, Reconciliation

-- Roofs must before Monsoons

-- Systematic communal polarization must be checked

-- Government had warnings of violence but failed to act

Independent Tribunal will send list of queries to State Government for response

--------



The four-member Independent Tribunal consisting of eminent jurists Justice Hospet Suresh, Justice Kolse Patil [both former High Court judges], Director General of Police [retired], Gujarat, Mr. R. B. Sreekumar and Ms Teesta Setalvad, the noted Human rights activist, returned from Kandhamal on the evening of 16th May 2008 after extensive Public hearings in the district between 13 and 15 May 2008. Justice Suresh left for Mumbai early, but Justice Kolse presided over a press conference also addressed by Ms Teesta Setalvad and Mr. R B Sreekumar at Swosti Hotel in Bhubaneswar today. The Tribunal did not issue a written statement, but made oral preliminary remarks and said the Interim report will be prepared and questionnaires sent to the State and Central Government authorities for their comments and responses before the final report was made public.

The following are excerpts from the typescript of the Press conference:

Justice Kolse Patil: We have been going places through the country where there is human rights violations and prejudice. We were requested by Ms Teesta Setalvad and we have been to Kandhamal for the Independent Tribunal. We have practically visited most affected villages, tried to talk to victims personally, and we also invited them for giving evidence before the Tribunal. We have recorded the evidence.

One thing we noted prominently is that aid has not reached the victims. Churches, hostels, hospitals which are destroyed – they are as it is. Now we know the area is facing monsoons. By June, within these fifteen days, if aid is not reached, the condition of these victims will be pathetic. Many of them have no houses yet. Hundreds of families are either staying in a camp or with their relatives, wherever they got shelter.

This is a religious as well as an economic problem. A community rich in resources is being exploited. The culminative effect of this exploitation, we know, is that every six months or a year, riots take place.

The womenfolk who deposed before us said they were so independent before 1970. "We had our own traditions, our own sanskruti and we used to have tremendous independence." We in the Tribunal found that this happiness of the people there is being jeopardized by the religious, political economic exploiters. The area is being destroyed. The ultimate ulterior motive of the leaders, religious, economic or political, is clear. Many of the down trodden are doing business now and they are educated, and because of their education and upliftment, the class that was exploiting them earlier, is making life miserable for them.

The evidence is with us and we will analyse it. We have tried to invite all state machinery to give evidence. We also tried to contact them to give and other facilities to the people/ There are no government schools running in the area, and some schools run by other agencies seem to be for their own ulterior motives. The government instead of protecting the traditions and culture of the people has allowed other agencies such as the RSS and the Bajrang Dal to be active. The government machinery is not taking an interest in the progress of the area. The police have neither recorded the complaints of the people nor given them protection, and there this is the best example of why there is no law and order in the district.

But prima facie, it is important that the people get aid immediately so that by June their life is somewhat conformable and they are in a position to have shelter.

Ms Teesta Setalvad: We have just concluded our visit and this is a preliminary feedback for the media.

It is virtually five months after the break of the violence. The violence which we know was deliberately engineered around Christmas day 2007 had been festering for other reasons since about July or august 2007. The festering conflict since that period has been twisted and manipulated and engineered around Christmas eve, which is a very major event for the minority community. And the violence unleashed. Even the government – we met relief official the sub collectors, have spoken to the superintendent of police. Even the government records show where the damage has taken place.

What is really of concern is that even five months after the violence, when we visited the remnants of the camp at Barakhama, the communication levels that ought to be there between the victims and the government officials were not there. While we were there, we actually encountered a young woman who suffered an abortion, needed to be taken to hospital because she was festering with a stomach infection which could have led to septicemia. Only after our intervention, she was privately taken to the Balliguda hospital for treatment. This small incident, but which could have affected her life, showed that there has not been required and requisite coordination between the victim groups and the government. Even five month after the outbreak of violence, in the heat of this month and the threat of monsoon by the next fifteen or twenty days, government officials admit that about 220 houses need to be built in Barakhama alone, and now private agencies are being asked to chip in to buy asbestos sheets for the roofs. We do not understand how government could not recognise the urgency of doing something about it.

Out first appeal to the government is that they should put aside technicalities and on a war footing ensure that every single house is built. It is not that which agency gives the money, but the issue should be that the people who are dis-housed and displaced by the violence it is the responsibility of the government under the Constitution to ensure that the houses are built.

Number two: We also believe that in a particular village which is quite inaccessible -- even we had to walk to it because the road is very bad – called Borikia, there are 48 [forty-eight] families who are displaced from there and are now staying at G Udaygiri. This is an immediate problem. We are therefore appealing to the authorities that under police protection, if required, they are allowed to go back to their village because they are still living in a leprosy camp and they are not able to go back.

I would not go to the nitty gritty of testimonies, but our visit was very illuminating. Out of my experience of travelling across the country – unfortunately dealing with communal situations –m what was very apparent and heartening in the Kandhamal area is the inherent communication and empathy that even the different affected groups have with each other. We believe there is a tremendous potential for peace-building in this area. There is a history of peace-building like in 1994 when women from different tribes and groups were given the leadership. The governments unfortunately not entrusting them with this peace-building. Unfortunately, many of the peace committees set up by the government have people on them who are themselves accused in the violence. So they fail to attract the faith of the affected population. Something heartening we found was that the local populations do not have animosity, apathy towards their fellow people. The local population does not have grudges, or any festering communalism.

There are some issues that led to the violence, but there is a tremendous potential to overcome it. So instead of making cynical exploitation of the potential for violence in this pre-election year – there is one more Christmas this year – the government should concentrate on genuine peace building and hand very this process to people who can handle this work. This is also our appeal.

Our preliminary view also is that in terms of what happened 24 to 27th December 2007, there were definite indicators of various kinds that such violence may break out. So there seems to have been a failure of the state to take preventive measures. The timing of a bandh on a date which is an important feast of the minorities – all this points to the fact that the government did not take as seriously as it should the events of 24th and 25th December. These mistakes we cannot afford to repeat. This is a very inaccessible region. If anything of this kind is allowed to fester, it will be even more problematic. We feel the government should learn the lessons, admit its failure and NOT allow them to happen once again As citizens of this country, poor victims of inaccessible areas should NOT become victims once more of something that can be avoided.

We also have reports of communal speeches being made, a certain communalization of populations. This will come out in the final report. But we believe that stringent action against communal elements is a step the government should be taking.

Mr. R B Sreekumar, IPS Retired: We have to think what we can do hereafter. We should build upon the present situation. Unlike in other places, particularly in Gujarat for instance, there is a lot of amity prevailing here between people. There is a Standard laid out drill that the government of India regulations stipule – there are Three "R" to be followed. These are first Reconciliation, second Rehabilitation and the third is Resettlement. For this there should be schemes. One is the civilian one. And the other is the police side. No society can be held together on police terror and police suzerainty or police plan. Those were the easy of the British. action. That is why the British gave all powers to the policeman. A head constable apparently ahs power than the President of India – he can arrest a citizen under fifty-two different laws. That is the British system which we are continuing.

What is required the civilian action. Development problem and social problems will degenerate into communal clashes unless action is taken, or caste or class violence. Institutions and NGOs fail, government departments fail. Civil departments in Kandhamal should come out with detailed scheme regarding social welfare, social mobility, economic issues, and even religious reconciliation. We are not lacking any code of conduct or systems. We have not implemented them. There are certain agent's provocateurs, instigated by evil minded people probably deputed by some political parties, communalists, who have some grand design to break India, they are behind it. These people should be brought on record by the police. These are all laid down procedures and should be followed as listed in the Orissa Police Rules. This is a specified laid down drill down to the police station. But apparently it is seldom or rarely implanted. It must be impended otherwise another conflagration will take place.

It seems there is some problem in arresting a top-most communalist who is engaged in rabid vituperative attack against a minority community, denigrating holy personalities such a Jesus Christ. If the police say it is not easy to arrest him, a beginning can be made by arresting his henchmen. Without these henchmen, these tools, he cannot operate.

There should be a special riots scheme to handle future situations in this area otherwise the police will collapse. There should be standard operating procedures in which dos and Don'ts for every rank of officer should be laid down.IPS officers should be trained.

There seems the skill is lacking. But also the will is lacking. If the police are again caught unawares, unlike in Delhi, Ahmadabad or Chennai, here in far flung areas, you may have to drop policemen by helicopters and even then by the time the police come, the whole thing may be over. I think because of the amity, fraternity and harmony between people, there was no targeted attack on human beings. Had they attacked human beings, nothing would have been left. The riots died down of their own, without any government intervention. It is as if the government was following some system of `naturopathy'. This cannot do.

Response to some questions from the Media:

Teesta Setalvad: The tribunal invited leadership of all different sections of public and political parties to depose. The public came from all communities and religions, but the political leaders did not, either from the ruling alliance or from the opposition. We have this experience in other tribunals. The person [Swami laxmananda] you mention did not appear before us. But there is not a single section of people that did not depose before us. Unfortunately the political class looks askance at Tribunals and the administration.

Justice Patil: We named people because there was evidence on record – the slogans, and the names related by witnesses.

Ms Teesta Setalvad: we have on record testimonies of people who have studied in the ashram of Swami Lakshmanand Saraswati – how this ashram functions, what it does, what activities gonon there. Al this is now on record of the tribunal. We have concluded that certain types of speeches that have been made and telecast have made the communal pointing.

The government has been apathetic. Monsoons are approaching, Aid has not yet reached. It is the primary Constitutional responsibility of the government to ensure that people have a shelter over their heads and do not survive in subhuman conditions. Even now people have not gone home, or not been able to return home. Surely there is a degree of insecurity. Miscreants who have been identified in every village – the whole village is not communal, but some elements are – create situations in which people cannot come back. At that stage the administration should step in, to ensure that the citizen should be able to return. This indicates complicity. State complicity is in not having adequate force to prevent violence despite warning, and not taking immediate and concrete steps since the violence broke out. Even today, police are not registering FIRs and punishing the guilty. These are the ingredients on which we say that there has been a high level of carelessness and apathy on the part of the government -- When crimes are committed across time and across villages, who the villagers are naming as accused.

There were many ingredients that form the backdrop of the violence, but the violence took a distinctive communal color. It is unfortunate fact of our history as an independent country that communal violence and other violence between different section of society is used by the party in power , whichever the party it is, but for some party, hatred itself is the agenda. Using violence for political ends has unfortunately become a part of democratic electoral practice in India.

Some parties have hatred as an agenda and some don't.

It is obvious there were a lot of preparations for the violence. Violence can be used to polarize people in a pre election year. The fact that this happened in December 2007 and what we have seen of the political response -- by the ruling party and the opposition – it seems there has been some complicity across parties. If adequate lessons are not learnt, there are fears that once violence has been used, it will be used again. Here or in neighboring districts or in neighboring states which will go to elections sooner or later.

It is the local people who can provide answers and solutions. They are working day and night. I was really humbled by the testimonies of the Kui women.

In Kandhamal, people filed FIRs, even sent it by registered post. But these were returned. This is against the law. Under section 154, FIRs have to be registered, as the law of the land insists. The attitude of the police and administration does not seem to be to record the FIRs and punish the guilty. This is unfortunate. There was ample evidence through government sources. The reasons why the government did not take adequate measures speaks for itself. It is the amity between the people that prevent more lives lost. Otherwise there was nothing that the government did which could have prevented this. Violence festered with no affective government intervention.

Our report will say all this in a considered manner. We will come before you once again.

Released to the media by

Dr John Dayal

Member, National Integration Council, Government of India

Convener of the Independent Tribunal

Mobile phone number 09811021072

Email: johndayal@vsnl.com






--

A Christian bother narrates the attack on Presentation Sisters in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India by Hindutva militants

Subject: Bhopal

On Thursday the 15^th of May, 2008, at 6.30 in the evening, Marie Selvum, a second year Novice in Pratishta Niketan, the Novitiate of the Presentation Sisters, went out to the gate to close it. There were two young men on a motorcycle there, who asked, "Is this a church ?" She said it wasn't. They politely said their is that sos, but entered the gate. Marie decided to make for the front door and close it ; but they were faster. They barged in to the Novitiate. She realised then that there were two more motorcycles behind them, and a Maruti van, and she noticed that the men in them were young, well dressed, with mobiles and other indications that they were of a class higher than that of the local villagers. They had cricket bats and hockey sticks, and some were picking up stones from around.

When they had a sufficient number of men inside, they demanded that she call all those in the house, downstairs. She knew that Sr. Rose, assistant to the Novice Mistress, was upstairs, in the computer room. She made her way upstairs. A man followed her. He demanded that Sr. Rose go down immediately. Sr. Rose coolly told him to go down : she would make her way down. He turned around, and grabbed two Novices around the shoulders, Marie and Josie. As they neared the head of the stairs, Josie found a way of wriggling out of his grasp, and made off. Sr. Rose told her, and others, to lock themselves in rooms. But though they were all terrified, they were transfixed by the cries of Marie, who had been grabbed now by the hair, and forced downstairs. She was unable to do anything else but cry, "Bhaiyya ! Please don't do this !" When they reached the bottom of the stairs, he forced her into the community room, which had a TV, a bookshelf, and some chairs and tables. She realised that he wanted to bolt the door, and so she hung on to it. He smashed the door - it was made of wire gauze - but she clung to it, and sank to the floor. He dragged her by the ankles and swung her around. She continued imploring him with the same words, "Bhaiyya ! Please don't !" .

At that stage another young man, who had been giving orders around to the mob, told him to leave her, and concentrate on smashing things. He complied immediately. They smashed the TV, knocked down the bookshelf, smashed the furniture and all the glass in the windows.

Meanwhile, Sr. Sylvia, the Novice Mistress, who was in the farm, figured that all the noise was not just from the "Sammelan" across the road, and wasn't the result of the wind slamming furniture around (which it had been doing for some days). She came in to the house by the front door, to find a mob of around 50 people howling slogans at the gate, and when she entered the house she found people smashing every single window, light switch and light bulb they could find. She continually asked, "Who are you ?" "What do you want ?" "Why are you doing this ?" and asked them to stop. The only response she got was further destruction. One boy, who seemed to be the leader, said, "We are Hindus. We want you out of this place".

Then, as suddenly as they had come, they were gone.

The Sisters found that their telephone line had been cut (in this day and age, they had resisted getting a mobile connection), so Sr. Sylvia took a back route to the village and called people. Before she got back to the Novitiate, the Police had arrived. I was in the process of taking Gussy to Habibganj Station for his train to Delhi. I picked up Shivaji, one of the Novices, and headed for Gandhi Nagar right away. When I arrived, I saw that priests, Sisters and Brothers from the vicinity had arrived, and the Police were still taking down statements.

I rejoiced that Marie and Josie were being asked to recount the events again and again for everybody who came. And there were some calls (on borrowed cell phones) from their own Sisters, in Delhi, and Chennai, and Goa, which were just what they needed. It gave them both, more especially Marie, the opportunity to describe the events, just as they were ; to remember them as events that had happened. I encouraged them to do so as often as they could, and to be careful to use the Past Tense ; and not to be afraid of saying that they had been afraid, or panicky, or that they wanted to cry. That way they had a chance of placing those horrific events in the Past, where they belonged, and making a space for the lives they were going to live, starting from the Present. The police were already offering a picket for the nights to come, and the days. This would help them to face the future, and leave behind the fear that wanted to cling to them. I kept pointing out the courage that they had displayed at crucial points, and suggested that they could wonder where this courage came from.

I was glad that I could do that for them. Otherwise there was really nothing I did. It was a time when I could actually experience the duty of being brother, which has sometimes nothing to do with doing, just being there. It was a powerful experience for Shivaji, too, because the Novices knew him better, and they were able to break down and cry when he was present. That was a long night, because the Sisters had to make statements, and First Information Reports, and eventually go to the Police Station, and it was past 12.30 when all were able to retire. I think most were able to sleep. Next morning they were able to make jokes about shouts and cries that they had heard from one another's beds. I thought it was a good sign.

But now the procession began. All day long, more and more people came in, some of them simple people who came to express their solidarity, but many of them officious officials, one more policeman, from one more department, one from the CID, one from the CBI, then the first of the politicians, who could smell an opportunity to be in front of the cameras.

At this stage it was not helping the young Sisters in the focus of the events to live their lives. So I agreed with the Sisters that none of them would speak to anybody, but anybody. They were able to go upstairs, and do some ordinary things, like having class, and prayer, and help with cooking meals

And each well-wisher was invited to look at the rooms where the damage had been done. And if he wished to speak to the people who were actually involved, he got a gentle but firm no. Of course, the poor fish would fall into the trap of asking the next question, "What was the reason for this behaviour ? Was it about land ? Or was it about conversions ?", and it served him right. Because then he got the full barrage of unbridled rhetoric and oratory (no, no, not a little chapel) salted with irony and spiced with sarcasm, and points which they had better ponder on, because the next listener was going to get the same dose.

They were reminded that this remains a democracy, and a vibrant, healthy democracy at that. If people had any problems, they were welcome, and they knew that they were welcome, to talk to the Sisters. If they had any complaints, the Police were alive and well. And if they had a case, they could move the Courts. The country was aware that the Christians were the first to acknowledge guilt when they were guilty. (Shamed nodding of heads). And the fact that not one, not one, case of conversion has ever been brought to light, was offered to them in the soft, gentle tone of voice usually employed by the punter who senses victory on the last lap.

It was suggested to them that 20 young men who needed cricket bats and hockey sticks and a back-up force of 50 slogan shouting people in order to attack 11 defenceless women should really be given awards for bravery, if they would come forward and give their names. Such bravery is required for our armed forces. The right place for them should be on the front lines of Ladakh and Siachen, defending our country.

But, of course, (and they had to admit) they could hardly be real Indians, if they could stoop so low as to treat women that way. In fact, they were the antithesis of all that the Hindu religion advocates.

It was information to them that the Sisters were helping the children of the most destitute in the nearby villages with their school work, giving them tuition where they needed it. And they were invited to ponder the possibility that therein lay the problem for those wearing fancy clothes and carrying mobiles - maybe they could not countenance the fact that the next generation would be educated, and no longer subject to the same exploitation that had made them destitute in the first place !

There was some satisfaction in being able to make these suggestions to a captive audience ; but one of the most moving experiences was to see their Provincial, Sr. Pushpam, and two members of the PLT, arrive from Delhi, after 13 hours in a car ; and to see the greetings they exchanged. I knew that healing would come of it. My work was done. The bike ride back gave me a chance to marvel at the gifts hidden in these horrible events.

Sr. Sylvia I think it was who prevented the driver from darting into the fray. If so, it was one manifestation of the Providence Who is our inheritance, and theirs too, our Sisters. Sr. Rose wanted to let the dogs out, but thought better of it. I am convinced that if the dogs had been available, the rowdies would not have had the same qualms about violence - and, having tasted blood, who knows what might have transpired. But the most striking epiphany was when Marie continually looked her captor in the eye and called him, "Bhaiyya", and, according to her own description, every time she did that, he looked at her and lost some of his fire. I found it hard not to think of "Jesus of Nazareth" - "I am He" - and they fell to the ground. I wonder how that young chap manages to look in the mirror these days : does he think of the girl who called him her brother while he treated her like that ? Is he able to look his own sister in the eye ? Is it possible something will yet happen to him ? Kingdom may yet come of it.

I must admit that I was amused at a very serious moment. On Thursday night, (well, 12.40 Friday morning) Sr. Sylvia led the night prayer, and I was privileged to be present. She started by asking us to pray for peace, to allow ourselves to be penetrated by peace. Then she invited us to send the vibrations of that peace to those who had entered our house that day.

And the song we sang was "Om Shanti Om", in the original Sanskrit. The reason I was amused was the thought that the brash young man had had the effrontery to declare himself to be a Hindu. If he could only have been present that night !

Not one iota of violence did our Sisters offer during the entire episode. Right now our own Novices are contemplating the enormity of this fact. When I started writing this, I had intended to email it today the 17^th, but the Internet refused to cooperate. This evening we had satsang, which normally takes about an hour. Today we were there for a little over two hours. Our reflections were nearly all around the experiences of our Sisters, and the feelings generated in us, their brothers. I was so proud of them, of the strength of their feelings, and their willingness to share them, and to delve into memories of similar events - some of which astounded me. I think I have seen Kingdom come.