Hindus attack churches on Christmas [ransacking and burning]

AP ^ | 12/26/07 | ASHOK SHARMA

[charles m]

NEW DELHI - Hindu extremists attacked Christians celebrating Christmas in eastern India, ransacking and burning at least six village churches, officials said Wednesday. One person was killed in the violence.

Authorities in the remote district where the churches were attacked have deployed 450 police to quell the violence, which had tapered off by Wednesday, said Bahugrahi Mahapatra, a government official.

There were conflicting reports of what sparked the unrest in Orissa, a state in eastern India with a history of violence against the area's tiny Christian minority. Mahapatra called the violence a "sensitive matter" and refused to discuss how it began.

Some reports said that Christians had attacked a hardline Hindu leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad group, who had been leading an anti-conversion movement.

"The situation was aggravated by some Christians forcibly stopping the 80-year-old Hindu leader Laxmanananda Saraswati and attempting to attack him," said Giriraj Kishore of the VHP.

"When they were prevented from attacking him by his followers the Christians hit someone with an ax and one Hindu died," he told reporters in New Delhi.

But the New Delhi-based Catholic Bishops Conference of India said the fighting began when Hindu extremists objected to a Christmas Eve show, believing the display was designed to encourage Hindus at the bottom of the religion's rigid caste hierarchy to convert to Christianity.

An argument over the Christmas show got out of hand and some of the Hindus opened fire on the Christians, wounding three of them, said John Dayal, a spokesman for the Bishops Conference.

The Hindus then went on a rampage on Christmas Day, chasing people out of six churches and setting ablaze the buildings, most nothing more than mud and thatch houses, he said.

Later, dozens of people from each community clashed, Dayal said. One person was killed, although it was not immediately clear if he was a Hindu or Christian. Another 25 people were wounded, the Press Trust of India news agency said.

Although Hindus, the overwhelming majority of India's 1.1 billion people, and Christians, who make up around 2.5 percent of the population, have tended to coexist peacefully in India, the region where the violence took place has a history of tension between the communities.

Orissa, in fact, is the only Indian state that has a law requiring people to obtain police permission before they change their religion, a move designed to counter missionary work.

Much of the ill-will in the area, about 840 miles southeast of New Delhi, stems from anti-missionary sentiments.

In 1999, an Australian missionary, Graham Staines, and his sons Philip, 10, and Timothy, 8, were burned to death as they slept inside their vehicle after a Bible study class in Orissa.

The Christians, meanwhile, have challenged the conversion law in court, saying it violates India's constitution.

[Redbob]

Apparently there’s more than one “religion of peace” out there...

[TheRake]

Yet we continue to do business there.

[An_Indian]

yes, just as you continue to do business with China!

[HD1200]

You just never see headlines saying “Christians loot and ransack (fill in the religion and house of worship)....”

[An_Indian]

not just China, also with Pakistan, Saudi Arabia too!

and lets not blow this out of proportion. India has 800 million Hindus, 200 million Muslims and 20-25 million Christians!

The incidents reported above are small and did not affect more than a 100 people in a nation of 1 Billion!

[jimtorr]

I know a number of people who have worked with churches in India. They aren’t missionaries as such, but only work with local churches, at their request. Mostly pastoral training.

The only problems they have ever reported was with the short stays required by their having to enter the country only with tourist visas.

[CarrotAndStick]

Some reports said that Christians had attacked a hardline Hindu leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad group, who had been leading an anti-conversion movement.

"The situation was aggravated by some Christians forcibly stopping the 80-year-old Hindu leader Laxmanananda Saraswati and attempting to attack him," said Giriraj Kishore of the VHP.

"When they were prevented from attacking him by his followers the Christians hit someone with an ax and one Hindu died," he told reporters in New Delhi.

[TheRake]

The topic here didn’t include China. We shouldn’t be trading with China either. I do my best not to purchase goods from there.

[DJ Taylor]

"You just never see headlines saying “Christians loot and ransack...

Yes, this incident makes me long for the good old days when all you could read about in the newspapers were reports of Protestants and Catholics murdering one another and burning churches in Northern Ireland. (Sorry about the sarcasm, but no religion can claim the high ground on this issue.)

[HD1200]

“Yes, this incident makes me long for the good old days when all you could read about in the newspapers were reports of Protestants and Catholics murdering one another and burning churches in Northern Ireland. (Sorry about the sarcasm, but no religion can claim the high ground on this issue.)”

“but no religion can claim the high ground on this issue”.

Sure we can. Christianity REFORMS and over time resolves differences; the others do not.

[orinoco]

It was not really about religion but about making Northern Ireland part of Ireland and not part of Great Britain.

[PapaBear3625]

But the New Delhi-based Catholic Bishops Conference of India said the fighting began when Hindu extremists objected to a Christmas Eve show, believing the display was designed to encourage Hindus at the bottom of the religion's rigid caste hierarchy to convert to Christianity.

This is the real issue. Bottom-caste Hindus do all the crap jobs, and have to defer to upper-caste Hindus. If they convert to Christianity, then they might tend to get "uppity" and forget their "place" in the scheme of things

They might even leave the countryside and try to get a job in the city with a company that doesn't care about caste

[CarrotAndStick]

Orissa is a state with a large, forest-dwelling tribal population.


It is the same place the emperor Ashoka won the Kalinga battle. The place has been wild since ages.


Besides these tribes, there are even more primitive tribes in some of India's islands:





 

Stone Age tribe kills castaways

http://www.theage.com.au/news/world/stone-age-tribe-kills-castaways/2006/02/09/1139379613195.html

 

February 9, 2006 - 1:14PM

Police on India's Andamans are planning to sneak onto a forbidden island to retrieve the bodies of two castaways killed by members of an isolated tribe, officials said today.

Fishermen Sunder Raj and Pandit Tiwari fell asleep in their row boat which drifted to the shores of North Sentinal island, 40 kilometres from the Andaman's administrative capital of Port Blair, Dharmendra Kumar, police chief of the Indian Ocean archipelago.

They were killed with bows and arrows by Sentinalese tribespeople when they arrived on the shores of the island, which is out of bounds even to Indian authorities.

The attack occurred some 10 days ago and the "Stone Age" aborigines have buried the pair in separate shallow graves next to their boat from where police hope to retrieve the bodies.

"Right now, it is impossible. There'll be casualties on both sides," said Kumar.

"Right now, they are coming out in large numbers and so let things cool down and once these tribals move to the island's other end we'll try and sneak in and bring back the bodies," the police chief told AFP by telephone from Port Blair.

Relatives of the slain fishermen were taken by government boats and shown the two graves through binoculars, said B S Negi, Andaman's chief civilian administrator, adding the area was still surrounded by 20 naked Sentinalese.

Kumar's plan if executed is likely to be criticised by environmental groups who accuse the authorities of failing to protect the archipelago's five aboriginal groups who have lived on the island cluster for 60,000 years.

"It will be crazy if the police land on the island. They will be condemned by the whole world," warned Samir Achorya, founder of Society of Andaman and Nicobar Ecology environmental group.

Achorya said the two slain men were poaching lobsters and crabs in the off-limit waters of Sentinal.

"These two were petty criminals and have been imprisoned many times so we don't know what the police will gain by retrieving their rotting corpses from the island, which is the legal exclusive preserve of the aborigines," he said.

Survival International, an international pressure forum for near-extinct tribes, accused the archipelago's administration of not doing enough to prevent fishing boats entering the island's waters, which are even forbidden to naval ships.

"These tragic deaths could have been avoided if authorities had been enforcing the law," forum director Stephen Corry said in a statement.

Beside the Sentinalese, four other Stone Age tribes -- the 99-member Onge, 350-member Shompens, 39 of the almost extinct Andamanese and 350 Jarawas --- live on the Andamans.

Only a handful died in the tsunami waves which lashed the archipelago on December 26, 2004, killing some 3,500 people in the Andamans. Another 5,000 are still listed as missing.

A military reconnaissance helicopter surveying a tsunami shipwreck near the island strayed too close to its shores last year and received a volley of arrows, one of which pierced the cockpit glass narrowly missing its startled pilot.

AFP

 

 

 

[CarrotAndStick]

It was not really about religion but about making Northern Ireland part of Ireland and not part of Great Britain.

Umm, no.

[montag813]

"When they were prevented from attacking him by his followers the Christians hit someone with an ax and one Hindu died,"

If true, not a very "Christian" act.

[Unam Sanctam]

Orissa, in fact, is the only Indian state that has a law requiring people to obtain police permission before they change their religion

A blatant infringement of human rights, but since Christians are involved, the international community of course coudn't care less.

[orinoco]

uhhhh....okay, you convinced me.

[muawiyah]

Sure, 10 fires set, 3 churches burned, no deaths, and contrary to the expectations of the News Media there was no great swelling of retaliatory violence.

Sounds like the common people in Northern Ireland have finally figured out what to do with these pukes.

[MimirsWell]

Anyone see the pattern emerging with most “Freepers” of Mainland Chinese origin?
1) Come over to FR and establish some credentials = post a few posts on subjects that make them look and feel American.
2) They cant help themselves seeing Freepers attack China and the Chinese shit in the market so they start making some conciliatory noises here and there.
3) They feel constipated by the fact that ties between India and the USA are warming up and people on FR who represent the majority sentiment in the US start to advocate even greater ties with India.
4) They cant do much about the shit that China sells, they cant do much that so many businesses in China cheat Americans and American companies as well. They cant change the fact that the Americans will continue to distrust China and the Chinese so what do they do?
Attempt to drive a wedge between India and the USA by making mountains of mole hills especially on the religious front exploiting the fact that Freepers are God loving Christians and try to post such trash.

charlesm you re not the first Chinese on the foru, zho s upto these tricks. I am not even sure if it wasnt you under a different alias doing the same sh#t untill you got your ass banned and are back now with a different alias. Your game wont work here. No Sir it wont.