CUTTACK, India (UCAN) -- A Catholic nun beaten and raped during violence right-wing Hindu groups orchestrated against Christians in Orissa, eastern India, identified two assailants in a police lineup, but not the rapist.

"I could identify the man who slapped me, pulled my sari and assaulted me," the nun told UCA News a day later, on Dec. 6. "I could also identify another man in the crowd [that assaulted her], but not the one who violated me," the nun said, declining to talk further.

Father Thomas Chellan, who was attacked at the same time the 28-year-old nun was raped, also was present for the lineup inside Choudwar Circle Jail in Cuttack, 1,700 kilometers southeast of New Delhi. About 100 media persons and a few onlookers crowded outside.

Montfort Brother Thomas Thannickal, a senior nun and a lawyer accompanied the two victims to the jail.

Brother Thannickal, who works in Cuttack, told UCA News that only the priest and raped nun were allowed to view the 90 men the police paraded, mixing jail inmates with the nine assault suspects they had arrested, a standard procedure.

A magistrate present at the lineup then called out to the two the nun had identified and asked if they were part of the mob. One denied his presence while the other kept quiet, Brother Thannickal quoted the nun as saying.

Father Chellan could not identify any of the men as his attackers, even after a second round examining them, Brother Thannickal reported, noting that four months have passed since the Aug. 25 incident.

The Religious said the Church now has to wait and see how the case progresses. Police, he added, may arrest more people and arrange one more lineup. "We have to wait before taking any further step."

The nun was raped and the priest beaten in Kandhamal district on the second day of the seven-week reign of terror Hindu extremists unleashed on Christians in Orissa, especially in Kandhamal, where a Hindu leader was killed on Aug. 23. More than 60 people died because of the violence, which displaced about 50,000 people, also mostly Christians.

The nun's case hit national headlines after she addressed a press conference in New Delhi on Oct. 25 and said she had no faith in the Orissa police investigation. She recounted, "They [in the mob] pulled out my sari and one of them stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand, and then a third person raped me." The nun said the police saw her being attacked and paraded half-naked but ignored her pleas for help.

Three days before the press conference, the Supreme Court had rejected a Church petition seeking a probe into the rape by the federal Central Bureau of Investigation. The Supreme Court directed the nun to cooperate with the state police investigation after the Orissa government said it had arrested nine people in connection with the rape. The nun, however, was staying at an undisclosed location outside the state, because she feared she would be attacked if she went to Orissa to identify her rapist.

On Dec. 2, the High Court of Orissa state agreed with a Church petition that the nun be allowed to identify her alleged attackers without returning to the state. The nun had approached the High Court after a lower court insisted she identify her assailants in that court. Later, Church people agreed to the suggestion to have the police lineup in Cuttack, 350 kilometers east of Kandhamal.

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