The Hindu : Front Page : “Sangh Parivar trying to wipe out Christianity’

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Tuesday, Nov 11, 2008
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“Sangh Parivar trying to wipe out Christianity’

Special Correspondent

BHUBANESWAR: A delegation of Christian organisations of Orissa met Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik on Monday and told him that the Sangh Parivar was “trying to wipe out Christianity from Kandhamal district.”

The team which met Mr. Patnaik at the State Secretariat said “fundamentalist forces were trying to name the communal violence as ethnic conflict between the tribals and Dalit Christians.”

The victims of the attacks were Christians, it said.

The Church representatives, led by Archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar Raphael Cheenath, said the claim that those leaving the relief camps in Kandhamal were going back to their own villages and settling down in their homes was not true.

Most of the Christian families that had left the relief camps in the riot-hit district had migrated to relief camps in Bhubaneswar, Cuttack, Berhampur and other places and also settled down in rented houses and in the homes of their relatives and friends, they said in a memorandum submitted to the Chief Minister.

A large number of Christians of Kandhamal had gone to Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Kerala, Karnataka and Gujarat, they added.

Other members of the delegation were T. Thiruthalil, Sarat Nayak, Joseph Kalathil, S.N. Patra, P.C. Nanda and Asit Mohanty.

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