Indian Commission Investigating Anti-Christian Pogrom

A seven-member team begins inquiry in areas where Hindus massacred Christians. They will meet victims, police officials and local administrators.

BHUBANESWAR (AsiaNews/Agencies) - A seven-member team from the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) started its investigations anti-Christian violence. On Thursday the team visited several riot affected areas, met victims and senior district police and local administrators.
The team is scheduled to stay in the state until 18 November, touring other parts of the state rocked by the communal riots that began two months ago, and where 10,000 people still live in government-run relief camps.

Officially 38 people died during the disturbances but a local government official said, on promise of anonymity, that more than 500 people died in the pogrom launched by Hindu fundamentalists.

It is not known whether Sister Meena Barwa will take part in the police line-up to identify her rapists, which is scheduled for 19 November.

On 25 August the nun was raped by a posse of Hindu fundamentalists with the complicity of some police agents who now stand accused of covering up the affair to protect the culprits.

"After what happened to her, the nun is under medical care and does not want to go back to Kandhamal," said Mgr Raphael Cheenath, archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar. "For now we have not yet decided what to do."