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Church leaders in India's Orissa state reject report on violence
08-07-2009
BHUBANESHWAR, India (CNS) -- Church leaders in India's Orissa state have dismissed a report on anti-Christian violence there as "one-sided," "fictitious" and "premeditated." S.C. Mohapatra, the retired judge who investigated last year's violence, said in his interim report that the attacks were not sectarian but rooted in tribal land disputes, the Asian church news agency UCA News reported July 7.
Mohapatra said fake caste certificates had been used to prove entitlement to land and that "conversion and re-conversion" were also issues, according to media reports.
Father Mrutyunjay Digal, treasurer of the Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Archdiocese, said the report, made public July 4, was designed to clear Hindu radical groups that orchestrated the violence.
"It is an attempt to hide the root cause," the priest told UCA News, calling the report "baseless and one-sided" with no statistical evidence.
He said statistics would show that land disputes are not a major issue in the region.
About 88 percent of the land in the Kandhamal district, the epicenter of the violence, belongs to the government.
The Kandha tribe owns 5.5 percent, the Pano 1.5 percent and other communities the remaining 5 percent.
http://www.catholicnews.com/data/briefs/cns/20090707.htm
