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ATTACKS ON CHRISTIANS IN THE STATE OF MADHYA PRADESH

FOUR CATHOLIC NUNS WERE RAPED AND ASSAULTED BY MOBS

Magisterial probe ordered into rape of nuns

[ image: After the rape of a nun this church has a continuous police guard]

After the rape of nuns this church has a continuous police guard

The Madhya Pradesh government has instituted a magisterial inquiry into the alleged rape of nuns at Bhandariya village, in the border district of Jhabua on the night of September 22 and 23, 1988. State Home Minister Harvansh Singh, who returned to Bhopal after visiting the Christian missionary home at the village, told reporters that a massive search operation had been launched to arrest the culprits. Moreover, the police from the neighbouring state of Gujarat had also been alerted in view of the possibility of the accused escaping to that state. In their FIR, two nuns alleged that they were raped, while two others maintained that they managed to escape, said Singh. The home minister said the Christian missionaries were running a dispensary and a nursery school at the ashram at Bhandariya village, under Kalyanpura police station 45 km from the district headquarters, for the last five to six years.

About 20 miscreants reached the ashram at around 2 am on September 23 and knocked at the door seeking medical help for a child. As a senior nun refused to open the door, saying they should either bring a woman or a letter from the local priest, some miscreants broke open the main door of the ashram with crowbar and other instruments. Singh said the miscreants asked the nuns, who were locked inside a room, where the money was being kept, in lieu of their safety. As per the statement of the victims, the miscreants after taking the money, led the nuns to the nearby bushes in the premises and raped two of them. However, two others managed to escape.

Tension mounts in India's religious conflict

Religious tensions have had dramatic consequences.


Another Report:

Four Nuns gang-raped in  India

Four nuns belonging to the  missionary group, Foreign Missionary  Sisters, were gang raped by suspected Hindu militants in the Jhabua district of Madhaya Pardesh in central India on 23rd September 1998. The four Catholic nuns, all under 35 years of age, were dragged out of  their convent, taken to a nearby field and gang raped by 15 to 20 men.  The police claim that they have arrested 4 people in connection with the  incident, but have declined to disclose their identity.  The assailants first knocked at the door of the convent pretending that  they needed urgent medical help for someone. The nuns were  unconvinced and refused to open the door. They barricaded themselves  in a chapel but the assailants then broke into the convent and ransacked  the whole building before dragging the nuns from the chapel and taking  them to the fields to be raped.  All  four of the nuns were from the state of Tamil Nadu working for FMS,  a humanitarian medical organisation, set up to provide medical help to  people bereft of medical facilities in the remote rural areas of the country. 

The incident comes in the wake of increasing violence against Christians  in India in recent years. In the last 2 years, as a result of widespread anti- Christian propaganda, there have been at least 45 recorded incidents of  violence against Christians in the states of Orissa, Bihar and  Maharashtra and Gujarat alone.   Christians have even lost their lives in  these attacks, and tens of Christian organisations, including schools,  have been forced to close down. Hindu militants have pledged to make  Gujrat a Christian free state by the year 2000.  The current government is an alliance which includes  RSS (Rashtriya   Swayamsevak) and Shiv Sena , and is led by the  BJP (Bharatiya Janata  Party). It has united  the militant groups around the vision of India as a  Hindu state in which minorities must assimilate to the majority culture  and language, revere the Hindu religion and glorify Hindu culture.  Christian leaders have condemned this recent incident and have called  upon the government to take immediate action to address the increasing  and systematic persecution of Christians in India. Archbishop Alan de  Lastic, the most senior catholic clergymen in North India, has written a  robust letter to this effect to President Narayana. Dr Simon Qadri  adds, We are horrified by these acts of violence against   peaceful nuns. It is a tragic reminder that Christians in India are no longer   safe from extremist attacks.  Having received numerous reports and   requests for help, CSW is now launching an awareness and advocacy  campaign on behalf of Christians in India.