Hindus in E. India Attack Christians, Burn 6 Churches

Whoa! Yep, you read it right...these were Hindus NOT muslims. The local Hindus in an eastern Indian villages went on a rampage on Christmas day and ended up burning six Christian churches and attacking Christian members. One person was killed in the violence.

The cause of the outbreak is a bit cloudy but in this area, there is a "non-conversion" law that Christian missionaries have protested and apparently the Hindus were incited by some sort of attack on a Hindu offical (verbal, I think). Bottom line is this area has a history of violence against missionaries and the non-conversion law makes converting from Hindu to Christianity only possible if the police are notified. Yeah, you read THAT right, too.

Here's the full story.

Dec 26, 4:19 AM EST
Hindus Launch Attacks on Indian Churches
By ASHOK SHARMA
Associated Press Writer

NEW DELHI (AP) -- Hindu extremists attacked Christians celebrating Christmas in eastern India, ransacking and burning at least six village churches, officials said Wednesday. One person was killed in the violence.
Authorities in the remote district where the churches, most nothing more than mud and thatch houses, were attacked have deployed 450 police to quell the violence, which had tapered off by Wednesday, said Bahugrahi Mahapatra, a government official.
There were conflicting reports of what sparked the unrest in Orissa, a state in eastern India with a history of violence against the area's tiny Christian minority. Mahapatra called the violence a "sensitive matter" and refused to discuss how it began.
Some reports said that Christians had attacked a hardline Hindu leader, Laxmanananda Saraswati of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad group, who had been leading an anti-conversion movement.
But the New Delhi-based Catholic Bishops Conference of India said the fighting began when Hindu extremists objected to a Christmas Eve show, believing the display was designed to encourage Hindus at the bottom of the religion's rigid caste hierarchy to convert to Christianity.
An argument over the Christmas show got out of hand and some of the Hindus opened fire on the Christians, injuring three of them, said John Dayal, a spokesman for the Bishops Conference.

The Hindus then went on a rampage on Christmas Day, chasing people out of six churches and setting the buildings ablaze, he said.
Later, dozens of people from each community clashed, Dayal said. One person was killed, although it was not immediately clear if he was a Hindu or Christian. Another 25 people were wounded, the Press Trust of India news agency said.
Although Hindus, the overwhelming majority of India's 1.1 billion people, and Christians, who make up around 2.5 percent of the population, have tended to coexist peacefully in India, the region where the violence took place has a history of tension between the communities.
Orissa, in fact, is the only Indian state that has a law requiring people to obtain police permission before they change their religion, a move designed to counter missionary work.