Robberies with assault on priests: the new face of intolerance in India

Two serious incidents have occurred in recent days in rural areas of Jharkhand and Orissa. Several priests were forced to seek hospital treatment after being beaten, forced to sing Hindu hymns and robbed. The secretary of the Catholic Bishops' Conference, Msgr. Aind: ‘These are not simple thefts. It is a way of persecuting and preventing pastoral activities.’

Ranchi (AsiaNews) - Beating and robbing priests from Catholic communities in rural areas. Intolerance towards Christians in India, fuelled by religious fanaticism, is increasingly taking this form, as evidenced by two very serious incidents in recent days.

On Sunday night, in Samsera in the Simdega district of the Indian state of Jharkhand, five masked and armed robbers entered the premises of the Catholic church and looted about 800,000 rupees (over 8,000 euros, ed.).

During the robbery, they brutally attacked the priests of the community. The attackers not only used sticks and weapons, but also pointed guns at the priests' heads, forcing them to sing religious slogans under threat.

The parish priest, Fr Ignatius Toppo, the headmaster of the Samsera school, Fr Agustin Dungdung, and the assistant parish priest, Fr Roshan, were injured.

The three are currently hospitalised in Bolba. Fr Roshan said that the robbers had a duplicate key. They first broke down the door of Fr Toppo's room and beat him, then entered the other rooms, attacking all the priests at gunpoint and forcing them to sing religious slogans.

One of the robbers had a homemade gun, another a sharp weapon. Fr. Ignatius Toppo revealed that the church in Samsera had already been targeted twice before, making this the third robbery it has suffered.

‘These are not simple thefts,’ Msgr. Vincent Aind, secretary general of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), told AsiaNews. "It is a way of persecuting, disturbing and preventing these communities from carrying out their normal duties. It is a sign that they do not tolerate any other religion, let alone any humanitarian gesture made possible by our good religious practices. These are different tactics of harassment and violence against Christians, showing disrespect for the Indian Constitution."

A few days ago, the same thing happened in Orissa: the bishop of the diocese of Sambalpur, Monsignor Niranjan Sual Singh, reported that during the night between 22 and 23 May, two priests, Father Linus Puthenveet (90) and Father Sylvin Kalam (43), were brutally beaten during an attack on the Carmel Niketan Ashram in Kuchinda Charwachi. Seven people entered the rooms, while four others remained outside.

The attack was motivated by a demand for money. The attackers took 30,000 rupees, a printer and an electric piano after beating, tying up and gagging the priests.

Bishop Niranjan Sual Singh told AsiaNews: "To date, no arrests have been made. This is the modus operandi in rural parishes: masked and armed men break into priests' residences, tie them up and beat them mercilessly. If the motive is really theft, why are only our clergy being attacked? I have filed an official complaint and written to the authorities: the law must take its course."