The brutalisation of the nun and the priest by a mob raising anti-Christian, Hindutva slogans took place around 1 p.m. at the site of the Divya Jyothi Pastor Centre. The church was burnt the previous day in reprisal against the murder of an RSS activist, Lakshmanananda Saraswathi, and four of his associates on August 23. The gang rape of the young nun, whose “virginity [was] grossly violated in public” (and whose identity is being withheld by this newspaper to protect her privacy) took place in front of a police outpost with 12 policemen from the Orissa State Armed Police present and watching, according to Father Thomas Chellan, the priest who was dragged out and badly beaten.
“Around 1 p.m., a gang came and pulled me and the Sister out of the house where we had taken shelter and started assaulting us,” Father Chellan told The Hindu in a telephonic interview from Kerala where he is recuperating.
“My appeals to the policemen who were standing nearby and watching only resulted in further beating. At one point the nun slipped away to plead with the police for help but she was dragged back by the mob and her blouse torn,” he said. The nun was gang raped in a nearby building, and he was doused with kerosene by the mob, which threatened to set him on fire. They were saved by a group of youth who took them to the police outpost where “one among the attackers was present with the police between 3 p.m. and 9 p.m.,” Father Chellan said.
News of the K-Nuagaon atrocity was conveyed through mobile phones to several priests and nuns hiding in the forests, fearing for their lives as the anti-Christian hunt was on. The victims were taken to the Baliguda police station around 9 p.m. where they filed First Information Reports. “I believe the Sister wrote in her complaint that she was raped,” Father Chellan said.
The atrocity, about which the State government has not gone public, has outraged and terrified Christian organisations working in Kandhamal district. News of it was brought to the notice of Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik by Raphael Cheenath, Archbishop of the Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar diocese.
Sister Nirmala wrote letters to the Orissa Chief Minister and the Prime Minister on this and other brutal attacks on Christians in Orissa. In her letter, dated August 28, 2008, to Chief Minister Patnaik, she took up “a very sad incident, soon after the eruption of the violence” of “one young sister, consecrated to God, who was administrator of an institute, being hunted out of her hiding place and stripped naked by the mob and her virginity grossly violated in public, without any help from the police present there.”
In her appeal for protection to Christians, Sister Nirmala urged the Chief Minister to “ask the Central Govt. for as many extra forces from the Centre as they are willing to give and you need.”
When contacted, Praveen Kumar, Superintendent of Police, Kandhamal district, told The Hindu that investigations into the episode by a Deputy Superintendent of Police were on and “the law will take its course.” He confirmed that no arrests have been made in connection with the incidents.
Source: http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/30/stories/2008093058040100
.htmSister Nirmala’s appeal to Orissa Chief Minister
“On behalf of our suffering brothers and sisters in Orissa who are in deep anguish, pain and constant insecurity, deprived of basic necessities of life and are crying out for immediate help, I urgently appeal to you in the name of God as the Chief Minister of Orissa to do all you can to put an end to this ongoing violence since 24th August 2008 causing untold terror, loss of property and even loss of life and human dignity, violating basic human rights of our own brothers and sisters.” This is the fervent appeal Sister Nirmala, Superior-General of the Missionaries of Charity, made in a letter she wrote Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on August 28.
It was in this letter that she narrated, in great anguish, how a young nun was “hunted out of her hiding place and stripped naked by the mob and her virginity grossly violated in public, without any help from the police present there.”
Gravity & scale
Sister Nirmala informed the Chief Minister of the gravity and spreading scale of the attacks in Orissa “triggered” by the murder of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati and four of his associates in his ashram in Kandhamal district. “Violence,” she pointed out, “has ranged from slogan shouting, throwing of stones, burning of vehicles, Churches and Church Institutions which are at the service of the people, the homes of countless Christian families being vandalised, ransacked and then torched. People have been beaten up. There have been incidents of priests and sisters being beaten up by mobs. Police in most cases have been unable to provide protection. Atrocities continue to take place while the police remain inactive. In some cases hostels and orphanages have been burnt and the children left without shelter and care. The house of our Brothers, Missionaries of Charity, was attacked and the patients were beaten up so that they may reveal the hiding place of the Brothers.”
Shelter in forests
The head of the Catholic religious order founded by Mother Teresa narrated in her letter how “people, Fathers, Sisters and Brothers…had to take shelter in the forests and mountains for fear of losing their lives – without food and without shelter from the rain. But they are not safe.”
She dealt specifically with arrangements that Missionaries of Charity had made, with the help of the administration, for the safety of its Sisters, Brothers, and their patients in the strife-torn district. While expressing gratitude to the State government and local administration for this help, she observed that “countless others who are in need have no help.”
Sister Nirmala urged the Orissa Chief Minister to “ask the Central Govt. for as many extra police forces from the Centre as they are willing to give and you need, and to keep them in Orissa for as long as it is necessary to ensure to your full satisfaction that the law and order everywhere in the State is restored.” She asked that “all our suffering people and children, even in the interior parts of the districts, be given protection for their lives, property and their human dignity, that immediate help reaches those who are without food, clothing, shelter and medicines; that the loss of property be compensated; that the facilities for the education of children be restored; and that the people be rehabilitated.”
http://www.hindu.com/2008/09/30/stories/2008093060761300.htm
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