Hindu nationalists attack Christians in Orissa

Thursday, June 21, 2012

By Joseph DeCaro, Worthy News Correspondent

NEW DELHI, INDIA (Worthy News)-- More than 50 Hindu nationalists attacked the pastor of the Pentecostal Fellowship Prayer group and a dozen families of his community on June 15.

Twenty Christians were injured as their homes were looted.

The attack, which took place in Balasore district, was "meant to terrify the Christian minority," said Sajan George, president of the Global Council of Indian Christians. "They want to repeat what happened in 2008, with the anti-Christian pogroms in the Kandhamal district."

A few days before the attack, local police at Brahmagiri seized more than 50 home-made bombs hidden in a hut in the village of Gambhari; the explosives were intended to start a new anti-Christian pogrom, similar to the attacks in Kandhamal in 2008.

Between December 2007 and August 2008, Hindu nationalists killed 93 people, looted and burned more than 6,000 homes and destroyed 350 churches, displacing tens of thousands of Christians; today, there are still 10,000 refugees.