KANJAMEDY, India (UCAN) -- The head of the Catholic Church in Orissa has sought security for Christians following renewed anti-Christian violence in the eastern Indian state.

"They have dared to do it again," Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar told UCA News on July 9, a day after mobs attacked Christian institutions.

Archbishop Cheenath said he has written to federal and state governments to ensure security for Christians in Orissa's Kandhamal district. The Divine Word prelate is based in Bhubaneswar, the state capital, 1,745 kilometers southeast of New Delhi.

Cuttack-Bhubaneswar and its four suffragan dioceses cover Orissa, where Christians form only 2.4 percent of 36.8 million people and Hindus 94.4 percent.

Authorities have now issued prohibitory orders and deployed police platoons in Tumudibandh, a town in Kandhamal about 350 kilometers west of Bhubaneswar. Anti-Christian violence erupted in the district during the past Christmas season, when Hindu mobs attacked and destroyed Christian churches and institutions, and burned about 400 houses.

On July 8, mobs of Hindu radicals cut trees to block roads and attacked Christian institutions in Tumudibandh. They damaged a Jesuit-managed church, its priests' residence and a Protestant orphanage there. Children from the orphanage ran into the forest to escape the violence.

The same evening, local Hindu youths joined Christian counterparts to guard Christian institutions in Kanjamedy, Nuagam and Raikia, other places in the district. Dharmapada Ranjit, a local social activist, told UCA News on July 9 that local Hindus have rallied behind Christians and opened their shops despite the extremists' call for a general strike.

Sudhansu Paraset, a Protestant farmer in Malikpada village, near Tumudibandh, told UCA News the latest flare-up was over the sale of beef. Hindus consider cows sacred and Orissa is among several Indian states that ban cow slaughter.

As he related it, some people in Malikpada slaughtered a cow and sold beef to some Christians and other villagers. As the Christians were returning to their house, Bula Chauduri, a Hindu religious leader, and his supporters stopped them. Chauduri, known locally as Madhaba Baba, abused the Christians for killing a cow and threatened to send them to jail after using his cell phone to take a picture of them carrying beef. The villagers first pleaded with him to delete the photo, but snatched the phone when he refused.

Chauduri then informed Lakshmananda Saraswati, an octogenarian religious leader who has opposed Christian missioners in Kandhamal for decades, of the incident.

Saraswati, based in Tumudibandh, rushed to Malikpada and ordered shops and other establishment to close, but left after seeing villagers rally behind the Christians, Paraset said. Saraswati was blamed for the five-day anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal starting Christmas Eve that claimed five lives, wounded hundreds and rendered thousands homeless.

On July 9, Father Joseph Kalathil, vicar general of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar archdiocese, accused Saraswati of creating "mischief again." He blamed the Hindu religious leader for "the unprecedented communal destruction and vandalism" Church workers and institutions have faced.

Father Kalathil's letter to federal and state governments, made available to UCA News, reported Saraswati's men wreaked "diabolic destruction and devastation" on the Jesuit residence. They destroyed the house's main gate, vandalized statues of the Blessed Mother and Saint Ignatius of Loyola, and looted three rooms, it said. "I would like to plead with you that Christians are not sacrificial animals to be sacrificed for propitiating fundamentalists and their associates," Father Kalathil wrote.

Paraset's lawyer-brother, Joyab Paraset, told UCA News some low-caste Hindus had slaughtered the cow and that Christians only bought the beef. However, Chauduri has filed a case against some Christians of Malikpada for killing the cow. The police came to the village to investigate, but did not arrest anyone.

Hindu fanatics in Orissa and elsewhere belong to groups that want to make India a Hindu theocracy. They have staged numerous attacks, injuring and sometimes killing Christians. Two of the most brutal attacks occurred in Orissa in 1999, when extremists burned Protestant missioner Graham Stuart Staines and his two minor sons alive, and stabbed and bludgeoned Catholic Father Arul Doss to death.

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