02/20/2009, 00.00
INDIA
Send to a friend

Orissa: violence continues, another Christian killed

by Nirmala Carvalho
Hrudayananda Nayak, 40, disappeared Wednesday evening. His lifeless body was found in the forest near the village of Rudangia whose residents are predominantly Christian. Eyewitnesses say that a group of Hindu extremists stopped him on his way home. This is the third murder since October after widespread anti-Christian violence in August and September of last year.
Bhumbaneswar (AsiaNews) – Another Christian has been killed in the State of Orissa. The lifeless body of Hrudayananda Nayak was found yesterday in the forest near the village of Rudangia, near Ghumusar Udayagiri, a city in the district of Kandhamal. The 40-year-old man had disappeared the day before.

Sajan George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), told AsiaNews that after Nayak accompanied his sister to a place five kilometres from the city he was stopped on his way back by a group of Hindu extremists and vanished thereafter.

Yesterday afternoon around 4 pm some Christian residents from local villages walking along the path Nayak had taken saw some blood and a slipper in a roadside bush.

Aware that a man had disappeared they informed police who came to investigate.

After a brief search by police and the Christians, Nayak’s body was found, lifeless.

Rudangia is a predominantly Christian village, some 260 kilometres from the State capital of Bhubaneshwar

Rudangia was the scene of a lot of violence and was virtually under siege at the height of the campaign of persecution against Christians in Orissa in August and September of last year.

On 30 September a mob of some 3,000 people was able to storm the village, torching houses and the local church.

A Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) platoon was dispatched to the village which was turned into a fortress. Christian residents have not dared leave it for fear of attacks.

Despite tight security measures violence has not ebbed in the area. Nayak’s death is the third such incident since 30 October.

TAGs
Send to a friend
Printable version
CLOSE X
See also
Orissa government cuts death toll from anti-Christian pogrom
12/05/2009
The cold-blooded killing of a Christian “Maoist” couple brings back fears of pogrom in Kandhamal
28/07/2015
Young Christian man killed in Orissa in what police describe as an “accident”
01/04/2009
With political discrimination in the wake of pogroms, Orissa Christians cannot vote
10/02/2009
Anti-Christian violence is rampant in Karnataka and Uttar Pradesh
13/09/2021 16:53


Newsletter

Subscribe to Asia News updates or change your preferences

Subscribe now
“L’Asia: ecco il nostro comune compito per il terzo millennio!” - Giovanni Paolo II, da “Alzatevi, andiamo”