New Delhi - Hindu rioters defied a curfew and torched
Christian homes and a church in renewed violence against the
community in India's eastern state of Orissa even as the police
arrested 40 people on charges of arson, news reports said Thursday.
At least 30 houses and a church were set afire in a village near
Phulbani, the main city of the central Kandhamal district on
Wednesday, the NDTV network reported.
In an attempt to clamp down on the rioting, authorities had issued
a curfew in the region over 300 kilometres west of state capital
Bhubaneshwar after a Christian woman was killed and 12 people injured
in Hindu-Christian clashes on Tuesday.
Villagers told the PTI news agency that they had received
anonymous threats that they would be attacked and the rioters fled
before the security forces arrived at the scene.
Meanwhile, 40 people, many of them activists belonging to Hindu
organizations, were held in connection for their suspected
involvement in Tuesday's clashes.
The Orissa government, which has been flayed by the federal
government for its inability in stemming the violence, said it will
make further arrests to restore law and order.
In New Delhi, the federal home ministry decided to rush in 1,000
additional paramilitary forces to check the violence in the state.
The communal clashes in the region broke out on August 23 after
the killing of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, who was
shot by unidentified gunmen.
Saraswati's right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad organization, accused
Christians to be responsible for the murder, a charge denied by
Christian organizations. Saraswati was running a campaign in the
region against conversion to Christianity.
Since then, many Christian prayer halls and churches have been
attacked and at least 32 people, mostly Christians, killed. Thousands
of people have fled from their homes and are living in relief camps
and the forests.
Communally sensitive Kandhamal - with a population of around
600,000, including 150,000 Christians - has witnessed numerous
clashes between Hindus and Christians.
In a related incident, unidentified men pelted stones at a church
in the Coimbatore city in southern Tamil Nadu state, the Times of
India newspaper reported.
It was the sixth attack of this kind on a church in Tamil Nadu in
the aftermath of attacks in Orissa. Police arrested some locals in
this connection, the report said.
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