Meena Barwa

In the anti-Christian pogroms in Kandhamal (2008), the nun was brutally raped. Ahead of the Feast of the Assumption, she speaks of her “personal passion". "Believing in the One who loves me, Mary showed me the way to find happiness."

Three years after the violence against Christians in Kandhamal, Sr. Meena Barwa says she is a new creature. The sufferings and pains of those years were a path to Christ. The trial against the rapists and their condemnation is essential to give justice to all victims of the pogroms.

The following is the statement that Sr. Meena Barwa read yesterday at the Indian Social Institute. Overcoming her shock and shame, the sister, two months after the incident and for the first time, agreed to speak about the violence and rape that she suffered at the hands of radical Hindus last August, accusing the police of Orissa of conniving with her attackers. Sr. Meena worked at the Divyajyoti pastoral center in K Nuagaon, in the district of Kandhamal (Orissa), together with Fr. Thomas Chellan, who was also mistreated and humiliated. Sr. Meena's public statement was necessary because the police in Orissa are trying to cover up the case. Among the Hindu fundamentalists are some who say that the sister "consented" to sex.