Buddhists in India Assault Christian Aid Worker, Friend

Assailants, still at large, abduct and threaten blind volunteer, associate and pregnant wife.

NEW DELHI, September 6 (CDN) — A visually impaired Christian and his friend accused drunken Buddhists of abducting and assaulting them last week after the blind volunteer distributed relief material in a Buddhist-majority town in a region of India devastated by recent floods.

The attackers are still at large after the assault on Wednesday (Sept .1) in the town of Leh in Jammu and Kashmir state’s Ladakh region, where flooding and landslides destroyed hundreds of houses and killed around 200 people on Aug. 6.

The attackers, identified as members of the Ladakh Buddhist Association (LBA), one of the region’s largest and most influential Non-Governmental Organizations, abducted Ram Kumar Thapa, Stanzin Chosphel and his pregnant wife Putali Sherpa because of their Christian faith and beat the men, the victims said.

Thapa, a blind music teacher in his 30s, was abducted from Mahabodhi Gate in Choglamsar area in Leh, where he was distributing relief material, at around 7 p.m. on Wednesday, according to the complaint he filed on Thursday (Sept. 2) with the Jammu and Kashmir State Human Rights Commission.

LBA members were upset that Thapa was preaching Christianity to displaced residents, according to his complaint. The Evangelical Fellowship of India Commission on Relief, a Christian relief agency, is rebuilding homes for the displaced people, mostly Buddhists, in the area.

“I was attacked physically by several unknown assailants before other witnesses nearby,” Thapa stated in the complaint. “Then these men forced me into a vehicle and continued beating me all over my body as they spoke in Ladakhi to each other.”

Thapa, from the eastern state of West Bengal, also stated that the Buddhists contemplated killing him. “They discussed whether to take my life or return to the ‘office,’” he said.

The assailants took Thapa to the office of the LBA in Soma Monastery, where a Buddhist monk was also present, and beat him again, he stated. He was then moved to a room where he could hear the voice of his friend, Chosphel, with his pregnant wife.

Chosphel, a convert from Buddhism, is from Ladakh and his wife is from Nepal. The Buddhist assailants had taken them from their house in the Skalzaling area in Leh after Thapa, under pressure from the LBA members, identified them as his associates, according to the Christian victims.

The attackers showed Thapa’s bruised and bleeding face to Chosphel to warn him against continuing as a Christian, Thapa stated. He was then taken back to the vehicle.

“They placed a gunny sack with a rope onto my lap and explained that this would be my last bed … [after] they throw me into the Indus River and see if a blind man can swim and save himself,” Thapa stated. “I became terribly afraid, since I could smell alcohol on their breath as we sat in the vehicle.”

Thapa begged that his life be spared “so I could see my wife, who must be worried since it was late now.” The kidnappers replied, “Your wife will see you when she finds your body by the river bank,” he stated.

Thapa and his wife, also visually impaired, teach and live at Mahabodhi Residential School for handicapped children.

Thapa stated that when he asked what they wanted from him, “they said I had to leave Ladakh with my family within two days or else they would kill me and my family. It was around 1 a.m. when they dropped me back to my house, bruised and trembling.”

Thapa went to the Housing Colony Police Station on Thursday (Sept. 2) and found out that Chosphel also was there to file his complaint.

Chosphel confirmed that the “office” they were taken to belonged to the LBA. In his complaint to the commission, Chosphel said that around 15 “heavily drunken” men came to abduct him and his wife in their black Bolero, a mid-size SUV.

In the courtyard of the LBA facility, the Buddhists beat Chosphel before his wife, who pleaded for them to stop and asked why they were being assaulted.

“They threatened to beat her as well if she did not keep silent,” Chosphel stated. “Then they dragged me into a room and gagged my mouth so I could not cry out as they beat me with rubber pipes and rods and fists continuously. All along they kept telling me to leave my wife and also renounce my faith in Christianity and return to Buddhism.”

The men released the couple at around 12:30 a.m. after giving them two days to leave Leh or convert to Buddhism, Chosphel stated, “or else they will chop my wife into pieces and kill me and also kill my family … who are still practicing Buddhists.”

The attackers also confiscated their mobile phones.

The victims told Compass that they were still facing a threat on their lives even after filing complaints with police.

Additional Superintendent of Police Stanzin Nurboo told Compass that no one had been arrested because the victims could not name the accused.

Chosphel and his wife, however, told Compass that they would be able to identify the attackers if they saw their faces; at press time, however, they said police had not contacted any of them to do so.

Religious conversion is a sensitive issue in Leh, which borders Pakistan and Tibet, as it is seen as an attack on its distinct religious and cultural identity.

Citing religious and cultural differences with the otherwise Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir state, some residents of Ladakh have been asking for union territory status for the region.

As a concession, the Ladakh region was bifurcated into Muslim-majority Kargil district and Buddhist-majority Leh district in 1979, and the Ladakh Autonomous Hill Development Council was also created in 1995 to grant some autonomy to Leh and Kargil districts.

The government of Jammu and Kashmir continues to have responsibility for maintaining law and order and is in charge of the judicial system, communications and higher education.

Of the population of 117,232, over 80 percent of the people in Leh are Buddhist. Muslims make up around 15 percent of the population, Hindus 3 percent and Christians 0.2 percent.

Report from Compass Direct News

INDIA: INCIDENTS IN TWO STATES SHAKE CHRISTIANS

With Orissa still reeling, violence in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh shocks believers.

NEW DELHI, September 8 (Compass Direct News) – Still reeling from violence in Orissa state, India’s Christians suffered major blows in two other states over the weekend.

As the Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC) revised its estimate of deaths from the last two weeks of violence in Orissa state from “more than 100” to 53 today, Christians in Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh were shocked when suspected Hindu extremists yesterday burned down the 86-year-old St. Bartholomew Church of North India.

Christian leaders said suspected members of the Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World Hindu Council or VHP) burned down the venerable church after parishioners had elaborately decorated it for its 86th anniversary. VHP members are also responsible for ongoing violence in Orissa state following the killing of a state VHP leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati, and four of his associates in Kandhamal district on August 23.

Thousands of houses, churches and institutions have been damaged or destroyed in the violence that began after VHP members led a funeral procession of Saraswati’s body to stir up anti-Christian sentiment. Maoists have since claimed responsibility for the murders, but the Hindu extremist groups continue to blame Christians.

Damages to the St. Bartholomew church building in Ratlam were estimated at US$18,000. It was the only English-language church in the district, with most of its members senior citizens and retired railway employees.

VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders have denied the allegations against them, claiming the church building caught fire due to a short circuit. But local Christians said a short circuit could not have led to a fire of the more than five hours needed to burn down the entire structure.

“The entire episode was planned and carried out by the VHP and Bajrang Dal,” Lalu Stephen, district president of the Madhya Pradesh Isai Mahasangh, an umbrella body of Christian organizations, said in a statement. “We have no doubt about their involvement in the entire episode.”

The investigating officer in Ratlam, Manish Agarwal, said police are investigating the church building fire and do not know whether the VHP or Bajrang Dal are involved.

Christians were further stunned when police presented the watchman of the church, Noel Pare, before media late at night accepting blame for the crime. The mother of the watchman, Rosy Pare, subsequently stated in an affidavit that her son, daughter-in-law and grandchild were sleeping at home when the incident took place.

She further said in the legal document that it was police who woke Noel Pare to inform him that the church was on fire. Pare, along with his wife, was taken to the police station for questioning, with his wife later released. After a few hours, local Christian leaders were called to the police station to be told that the watchman had accepted responsibility for the crime.

Rosy Pare claimed that police concocted the scheme to protect the real culprits.

Father Anand Muttungal of the Madhya Pradesh Catholic Bishops Conference of India said the conference will set up an independent committee headed by a retired High Court judge to include journalists, social activists and leaders from various religions to investigate.

“The members will be declared soon,” he said. “Police are trying to save the culprits and put the blame on the Christian community. We will not tolerate this attempt by the police.”

According to the police’s own report, at least 200 liters of kerosene were used to burn the church building.

“It cannot be the work of one man only,” Fr. Muttungal told Compass. “Clearly the police are trying to hide the facts here. The arrest of the church watchman is an attempt to malign the community. Every time it is done, and this time it was planned.”

Hindu extremists have a history of violence in the area. Most recently, on August 15, VHP and Bajrang Dal members attacked a youth meeting in Ratlam after a neighbor complained, said pastor Jose Mathew of Ratlam.

“They beat up many participants,” including a pastor, his wife and the district manager of World Vision, Mathew said. “Later the police without any enquiry charged them with attempted forcible conversion.”

 

Nuns Assaulted

In Chhattisgarh state, on Friday (September 5) about 20 Bajrang Dal extremists boarded a train at the Durgh railway station and took four babies 1 to 2 months old from two nuns of the Missionaries of Charity and from two women helpers. Subsequently the Hindu extremists beat a nun and a driver sent to help.

The nuns and two women helpers on the train were taking the babies from Raipur to the Shishu Bhava charity center in Bhopal when the Hindu extremists forced their way into the train shouting anti-Christian slogans. Christian sources said the extremists snatched the babies and left the train, with the nuns compelled to come after them.

Accusing the nuns of forced conversion, the Hindu extremist mob handed them over to the Government Railway Police (GRP). When one of the two sisters, identified as Sister Mamta, requested that she be allowed to make a phone call to get legal help, police flatly refused. After much pleading she was able to make a phone call to the archbishop from the mobile phone of a visiting officer.

The archbishop promptly sent two nuns in an ambulance along with a driver to the Durgh railway station to assist the nuns. But before they could reach the station, they were sighted and surrounded by the Bajrang Dal mob outside the railway station.

One of the arriving nuns, identified as Sister Laboure, and the driver of the ambulance were mercilessly beaten in public view by the mob. The Hindu extremists continued to shout anti-Christian slogans even as they were beating and threatening to kill the nun and driver.

Subsequently the GRP took the two arriving nuns and the driver into custody, and they were kept in the police station for five hours, with the wounds and other injuries of Sister Laboure and the driver unattended. The next morning police escorted the nuns to their respective convents. Reportedly Sister Laboure was later admitted in a hospital for treatment of her injuries.

The babies were not returned to the nuns but rather taken to a government hospital, where they remained at press time.

Fr. Muttungal said local newspaper Hari Bhoomi later covered the incident of the beating “and used very derogatory language, which is quite insensitive.”

In Orissa state, the GCIC confirmed that on August 25 VHP extremists killed three Christians at a place known as Jarginaju: Pastor Fitham Nayak, 62; Madan Nayak, 62; and Nathura Nayak, 60. The GCIC reported that before killing them, the Hindu extremists asked them to reconvert to Hinduism, killing them when they refused.

 

Karnataka

In Karnataka state, Christians leaders reported that about 30 attackers on motorcycles and in an SUV stormed into a church served yesterday and abducted pastor R. Babu.

After disrupting the service in Mulbagal, Kolar district by tearing up Bibles, hymnals and curtains and beating church members, the attackers carried Pastor Babu to a temple about five kilometers (three miles) away and forced him to observe Hindu rituals.

They released him only after he gave a written declaration in front of the police at Mulbagal police station stating that he would not go back to the village or continue any church activities.

Report from Compass Direct News