India's Orissa state government has been accused of failing to take action against the perpetrators of the gang rape of a 28 year old Catholic nun. The Hindu reports the Orissa government has failed to take any action against those who committed the gang rape of the nun and the brutal attack on a Catholic priest who courageously resisted their attempts to force him to participate in the atrocity.
The incidents took place on August 25 at K. Nuagaon, 12 kilometres from the Baliguda subdivision in Kandhamal district in Orissa state.
Both victims filed First Information Reports at the Baliguda police station.
Sister Nirmala, Superior-General of the Missionaries of Charity, wrote to the Orissa Chief Minister and the Prime Minister specifying the atrocities.
The brutalisation of the nun and the priest by a mob raising anti-Christian, Hindutva slogans took place around 1pm at the site of the Divya Jyothi Pastor Centre.
The church was burnt the previous day in reprisal against the murder of an RSS activist, Lakshmanananda Saraswathi, and four of his associates on August 23. The gang rape of the young nun, whose "virginity [was] grossly violated in public" (and whose identity is being withheld by this newspaper to protect her privacy) took place in front of a police outpost with 12 policemen from the Orissa State Armed Police present and watching, according to Fr Thomas Chellan, the priest who was dragged out and badly beaten.
"Around 1pm a gang came and pulled me and the Sister out of the house where we had taken shelter and started assaulting us."
"My appeals to the policemen who were standing nearby and watching only resulted in further beating. At one point the nun slipped away to plead with the police for help but she was dragged back by the mob and her blouse torn," he said.
The nun was gang raped in a nearby building, and he was doused with kerosene by the mob, which threatened to set him on fire. They were saved by a group of youth who took them to the police outpost where "one among the attackers was present with the police between 3pm and 9pm," Father Chellan said.
News of the K-Nuagaon atrocity was conveyed through mobile phones to several priests and nuns hiding in the forests, fearing for their lives as the anti-Christian hunt was on. The victims were taken to the Baliguda police station around 9pm where they filed First Information Reports. "I believe the Sister wrote in her complaint that she was raped," Fr Chellan said.
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(Source: CHN)