The inside of Sacred Heart Church in Narayanpur district of India’s Chhattisgarh state, which was attacked on Jan. 2 after a clash between indigenous people following animist religion and those following the Christian faith. (Photo: supplied)
Christian organizations in India have demanded a judicial probe into the sectarian violence that has forcibly displaced more than 1,000 indigenous faithful in two districts of the central state of Chhattisgarh.
“We appeal the provincial government to order a probe headed by a retired judge of the high court into the violence at Narayanpur and Kondagaon districts in recent months,” Advocate Justin Pallivadukkal, president of the United Christian Front told UCA News on Jan. 12.
He said his organization also conveyed its demand to the federal government through Chhattisgarh Governor Anusuiya Uikey.
Pallivadukkal accompanied by Father Johnson Tekadyil, chairman of the Ecclesia United Forum, and others visited the affected districts recently to take stock of the situation.
“What we came across was cruelty beyond human imagination. Women and girls were paraded naked in the village when they refused to give up their faith,” Father Tekadyil, who belongs to an evangelical church based in southern Kerala, told UCA News.
The priest said the visiting team was moved by the ordeal of the families who were forced to flee their homes and live like refugees in their own homeland.
“Houses and house churches of Christians in the villages were demolished; their belongings such as household items, domestic animals and grains stored were taken away in front of them. They were also ostracized from the community and denied water from the village well and other sources, making their lives miserable,” the team mentioned in its finding.
The team also found that the indigenous Christian families were denied permission for the burial of their dead members in the villages by local leaders who said it may displease their traditional deities and bring a curse on them.
The team was not allowed to enter into several affected villages where violence against Christians is being reported for the past three months. At least 83 incidents of violent attacks took place in Narayanpur and Kondagaon districts but the police did not register a single case.
The mobs attacked under the pretext that local indigenous people should not give up their traditional animist practices and adopt Christian values nor should they undergo religious conversion.
The visiting team did not come across a single conversion through allurement, coercion, or force, as is being alleged, Advocate Pallivadukkal said.
“The violence has nothing to do with religious conversion. It is a purely political ploy to divide the innocent indigenous people who have lived together in harmony for ages,” he said.
The lawyer said those following Christianity had transformed the way they dressed, kept their houses clean, and gave up bad habits like drinking and gambling. These Christians also send their children to schools which resulted in some of them getting jobs and improving their conditions.
“This clearly caused jealousy among their fellow villagers and some political forces are out to exploit the resulting divide for electoral gains. A clear social and economic divide exists in the villages now,” Advocate Pallivadukkal said.
Meanwhile, district officials have begun efforts to establish peace in the villages so that those driven out could return back.
Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Bhupesh Baghel has assured action against those behind the violence against Christians in the state who make up less than 2 percent of its 30 million people.
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