Raped nun fails to get notice for ID parade

Police have failed to notify a Catholic nun, raped during the 2008 anti-Christian violence in Orissa, of an identity parade including a new suspect in the case.

“Unofficially we knew … that the court fixed March 8″ for the identification lineup, Lansingh Lu Rongmei, one of a team of lawyers dealing with the nun’s case told UCA News today.

“But until she gets the summons, how can she attend?” the lawyer asked.

The nun, 29, also feared going to Kandhamal and she planned to request that the court move the police lineup outside the district.

On two previous occasions, the court had allowed the lineup to be moved to Cuttack, the state’s ancient capital, as the nun did not feel safe in Kandhamal.

Kandhamal was the epicenter of the seven-week long riot where she was raped on Aug. 25.

“The district is not yet safe for the nun. And, we also do not think the police would act in a fair manner,” the lawyer said.

She accused police of standing by while the nun was paraded half naked after she had been raped.

Rongmei said the investigating officer had applied to the court in Balliguda, Kandhamal, last month for an identity parade featuring the new suspect.

Father Thomas Chellan, who was also attacked on the same day, was also due to attend but he did not receive notification either, she said.

The last time the nun attended a lineup was on June 23, 2009, conducted inside Choudwar Circle Jail in Cuttack. Police lined up about 80 people, mixing prisoners with eight suspects, and asked the nun to identify those who attacked her.

A similar exercise was conducted on Dec. 5, 2008. On that day, she identified two people — one who slapped her and another who was in the crowd that attacked her.

Sister Mary Pulickal, superior of the nun, told UCA News today that the nuns “will not go to Kandhamal; we cannot go there because we do not feel safe.” Press Trust of India, quoting official sources, said 19 people have been arrested in the case so far. The state police’s Crime Branch was in search of two others, they said.

The news agency said Crime Branch officials also failed to turn up for yesterday’s lineup.

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Three withdraw anticipatory bail application in nun rape case

Cuttack (Orissa), Jan 19 (PTI) In a new development in the nun 'rape' case in Kandhamal district, three persons named in the police record today withdrew their anticipatory bail application from the Orissa High Court.
Fakir Mohan Das, Dhruva Charan Das and Hrushikesh Das decided not to pursue their cases for anticipatory bail after realising that their applications would be rejected by the high court.
Earlier, the court had rejected the anticipatory bail applications of three other accused.
The nun who lodged an FIR at Baliguda police station had alleged that she was raped at K Nuagaon during the Orissa bandh on August 25.
The nun had identified two persons, allegedly involved, during a Test Identification Parade (TIP) at a jail here on January 5.

PTI

‘Where is that sister…Come let us rape her, the crowd shouted’

New Delhi, Oct 24 (IANS)

"I hid myself under the staircase. The crowd was shouting ‘where is that sister. Come let us rape her, at least 100 people should rape.’”Her head down, her bespectacled face wrapped with a printed scarf, her voice steady except for once when she broke down and sobbed, a nun Friday recounted before a stunned nation the horror of her rape two months ago in Orissa’s Kandhamal district at the hands of a mob baying for vengeance for the killing of a Hindu leader.

Appearing live on TV news channels, the nun narrated her ordeal in the Indian capital, where she was brought by activists, and the way the state government and political parties had turned a blind eye to her suffering.

The press conference was held at the Indian Social Institute. Flanked by Christian leaders, the nun read out her handwritten statement that often made quite a few in the audience wince in horror.

The nun said a mob of 40-50 people dragged her out from the house of a “Hindu gentleman” where she was hiding, ripped off her clothes and raped her on a verandah strewn with glass.

“They pulled out my saree and one of them stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand and then a third person raped me on the verandah,” the nun, who did not take any questions, recounted in a choked voice of the Aug 25 incident.

“When it was over, I managed to get up and put (on) my petticoat and sari,” she said with her head bowed, stirring the conscience of a secular country that has been shaken by recent assaults by Hindu fanatics on minorities in Orissa and Karnataka states.

The nun recounted her story here two days after the Supreme Court ruled out an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) into the alleged rape and asked her to cooperate with the state police in the investigation. She had not made a public appearance after the incident was reported.

It was a painful journey the Indian nun had to endure all the way from Bhubaneswar to New Delhi to draw attention to her plight because, as she herself has said in the past, she had lost faith in the Orissa Police to bring to book the perpetrators, reported to belong to the Hindu extremist group Bajrang Dal.

The alleged rape took place two days after the killing of a prominent Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) leader and four of his associates in his ashram in Kandhamal. The killing triggered widespread anti-Christian attacks in the district.

Not surprisingly, at the end of the 15-minute hair-raising narrative, the nun was in no frame of mind to take questions and was quickly ushered out of the room by another nun and an advocate.

After the rape, the nun and Father Thomas Chellantharayil were made to walk on the road to Nuagaon market, which was half a kilometre away.

“They made to fold our hands and walk. I was with petticoat and sari as they had already torn away my blouse and undergarments. They tried to strip (me) even there but I resisted and they went on beating me with hands on my cheeks and head and with sticks on my back several times,” the nun said.

Personnel of the Orissa Special Armed Police (OSAP) were present at the spot but didn’t even attempt to intervene, the nun alleged.

“When we reached the marketplace about a dozen of OSAP policemen were there. I went to them asking to protect me and I sat in between two policemen. But they did not move. One from the crowd again pulled out from there and they wanted to lock us in the temple mandap,” she recounted.

Eventually, the nun and the priest managed to find their way to a police station, where the officials initially refused to register a complaint. They relented only after she underwent a medical examination and then too, what was recorded was an extremely watered down version of the incident, the nun said.

Replying to queries, the Archbishop of Delhi, Father Dominic Emmanuel, said the nun had come to Delhi in the hope that the Supreme Court would reverse its decision against ordering a enquiry into the incident that has sent shock waves throughout the country with the Pope expressing sadness over reports of anti-Christian assaults in India and European leaders seeking Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s intervention in the matter.

At least 36 people have died, thousands have been rendered homeless and dozens of Christians shrines vandalised in violence that erupted in the coastal Indian state after the killing of the Hindu religious leader.

The Supreme Court had Wednesday said “it does not feel the need to have a CBI inquiry, at the moment”.

Dominic said that since the decision was “for the moment”, the nun’s open admission and “narration of injustice under the state system would make the requirement felt”.

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Statement of the Nun who was raped in Orissa

Statement of Orissa rape victim Sr. Meena

On 24th August, around 4.30 pm, hearing the shouting of a large crowd, at the gate of Divya Jyoti Pastoral Centre, I ran out through the back door and escaped to the forest along with others. We saw our house going up in flames. Around 8.30 p.m. we came out of the forest and went to the house of a Hindu gentle man who gave us shelter.

On 25th August, around 1.30 p.m., the mob entered the room where I was staying in Prahald's house, one of them slapped me on my face, caught my hair and pulled me out of the house. Two of them were holding my neck to cut off my head. Others told them to take me out to the road, I saw Fr. Thomas Chellan also being taken out and being beaten. The mob consisting of 40-50 men was armed with lathis, axes, spades, crowbars, iron rods, sickles etc. They took both of us to the main road. Then they led us to the burnt down Jan Vikas building saying that they were going to throw us into the smoldering fire.

When we reached the Jan Vikas building, they threw us to the verandah on the way to the dinning room, which was full of ashes and broken glass pieces. One of them tore my blouse and others my undergarments. Father Thomas Chellan protested but they beat him and pulled him out from there. They pulled out my saree and one of them stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand and then a third person raped me on the verandah mentioned above. When it was over, I managed to get up and put my petticoat and saree. The another young man whom I can identify caught me and took me to a room near the staircase. He opened his pants and was attempting to rape me when the crowd reached there. One man in the crowd told him not to do any further harm and so he left me. I will be able to identify the person who raped me and other three persons who stepped on my hands and tore my saree etc.

I hid myself under the staircase. The crowd was shouting' where is that sister, come let us rape her, at least 100 people rape. They found me under the staircase and took me out to the road. There I saw Fr. Chellan was kneeling down and the crowd was beating him with hands and sticks. They were searching for a rope to tie both of us together to burn us in fire. Someone suggested to make us parade naked. They made us to walk on the road till Nwagaon market which was half a kilometer from there. They made us to fold our hands and walk. I was with petticoat and saree as they had already torn away my blouse and undergarments. They tried to strip even there but I resisted and they went on beating me with hands on my cheeks and head and with sticks on my back several times.

When we reached the market place a dozen of OSAP policemen were there. I went to them asking to protect me and I sat in between two policemen but they did not move. One from the crowd again pulled me out from there and they wanted to lock us in their temple mandap. The crowd led me and Fr. Thomas Chellan to the Nuagaon block building saying that they will hand us over to B.D.O. From there along with the block officer the mob took us to the police outpost, Nuagaon, other police men remained far.

The mob said that they will comeback after eating and one of them who attacked me remained back in the police outpost. Policemen then came to police outpost. They were talking very friendly with the man who had attacked me and stayed back . In police outpost we remained until the inspector incharge of Balliguda with his police team came and took us to Balliguda. They were afraid to take us straight to the police station and they kept us sometime in jeep in the garage, from there they brought us to the station. The inspector inchareg and other two government officers took me privately and asked whatever happened to me. I narrated every thing in detail to the police, how I was attacked, raped, taken away from policemen, paraded half naked and how the police men did not help me when I asked for help while weeping bitterly. I saw the inspector writing down. The inspector asked me "are you interested in filing FIR?" Do you now what will be the consequence? At about 10.00 p.m., I was taken for medical check up accompanied by a lady police officer to Balliguda Hospital. They were afraid to keep us in police station, saying that the mob may attack police station. So the police took us to the IB (inspection bungalow) where CRP men were camping.

On 26/08/08 around 9.00 a.m. we were taken to Baliguda Police Station. When I was writing the FIR, the Inspector In-Charge (IIC) asked me to hurry up and not to write in detail. When I started writing about the police, the I .I. C told me this is not the way to write FIR, make it short. Sot I re-wrote it for the third time in one and half page. I filed the FIR, but I was not given a copy of it.

At around 4.00 pm the inspector in charge of Balliguda police station along with some other government officers put us in the OSRTC bus to Bhubaneshwar along with other stranded passengers. Police were there till Rangamati where all passengers had their supper. After that I did not see the police. We got down near Nayagarh and traveled in private vehicle and reached Bhubaneshwar around 2.00 am on 27th August.

State police failed to stop the crimes, failed to protect me from the attackers, they were friendly with the attackers, and they tried their best that I did not register an FIR, not make complaints against police, police did not take down my statement as I narrated in detail and they abandoned me half of the way. I was raped and now I don't want to be victimized by the Orissa Police. I want C.B.I enquiry. God bless India, God bless you all.

Sr. Meena

Raped Nun tells her story

Raped Orissa nun narrates her tale

Friday, 24 October , 2008, 17:47

New Delhi: With a scarf covering her head and face, a sobbing nun who was allegedly raped by a mob in Orissa's Kandhamal district, appeared before the media on Friday to relate her sordid tale and lamented the state police's failure to help her.

Visibly shaken and seemingly not in a state to take any queries, she read out her own handwritten statement giving vivid details of the incident. She left soon after that.

The Archbishop of Cuttack, Raphael Cheenath, who had recently moved the Supreme Court seeking a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), saying that the nun had lost faith in the state police, also accompanied her in the conference. He also did not entertain any questions.

In her written complaint in the district on August 26, two days after the incident, the nun alleged that a mob of about 40 to 50 armed men attacked a house at K Nuagaon village where she along with a priest, Father Thomas Chellantharayil, had taken shelter after their centre was attacked.

The mob dragged her and the priest and took them to the deserted office of an NGO where she was allegedly stripped and raped. The priest was doused with petrol and beaten up.

They also paraded her naked on the streets, she alleged, saying that the incident occurred in the presence of a dozen policemen.

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Indian nun recounts rape ordeal

Fri, Oct 24, 2008
AFP

NEW DELHI - A nun who was allegedly raped during recent anti-Christian violence in eastern India demanded a federal probe Friday, and accused local police of shielding her attackers.

The nun was reportedly assaulted by a rioting mob on August 25, days after the murder of a Hindu priest sparked attacks by Hindu extremists on the Christian community in coastal Orissa state.

More than half-a-dozen people have been arrested over the incident.

But Mina Barwa told reporters in New Delhi that she had little faith in local police.

Barwa, 29, said she was dragged to a burned-out Christian home where two men held her down and a third raped her. She was then beaten with sticks and paraded semi-naked in the streets as mobs threatened to gang rape her.

"They pulled out my sari and one of them stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand and then a third person raped me," said Barwa, who covered her face with a scarf while speaking.

She was then paraded in the streets, along with a priest.

"They had already torn away my blouse and undergarments," she said. "And they went on beating me with hands on my cheeks and head and with sticks on my back."

At least 35 people died in weeks of anti-Christian attacks in Orissa and nearly 50,000 fled their homes. Many of them remain in state-run shelters.

Pope Benedict XVI strongly condemned the violence.

This week, India's Supreme Court rejected a plea by a Catholic bishop for a federal investigation into the alleged rape, saying the matter should be probed by the Orissa police.

Religious clashes erupt periodically in India where only 2.3 percent of the more than 1.1 billion population are practising Christians.

Hardline Hindu groups accuse missionaries of bribing poor tribes people and low-caste Hindus to convert to Christianity by offering free education and health care.

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Orissa police friendly with attackers, says 'raped' nun

New Delhi, October 24: : Two months after a nun was allegedly raped during the communal violence in Orissa, the victim on Friday came out in public for the first time recounting her traumatic experience and demanded a CBI probe into the incident, charging police of being "friendly" with attackers.

With her face masked, the bespectacled nun in her early thirties accused the Orissa police of failing to protect her from attackers and not being responsive.

Reading out from a four-page hand-written statement at a packed press conference, Sister Meena said she was dragged by a mob of 40-50 people, her clothes ripped apart and was raped on a verandah strewn with glass pieces as two of the attackers stood on her hands.

"They pulled out my saree and one of them stepped on my right hand and another on my left hand and then a third person raped me on the verandah," the nun, who did not take any questions, recounted in a choked voice.

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Indian priest describes mob ordeal 'like being tortured for Christ

By Anto Akkara
Catholic News Service

BANGALORE, India (CNS) -- Father Thomas Chellen, undergoing treatment at a Catholic hospital in Bhubaneswar, India, said he was grateful to be alive after a Hindu mob nearly set him on fire.
"They had poured kerosene on my head, and one held a matchbox in his hands to light the fire. But thanks to divine providence, in the end, they did not do that. Otherwise, I would not have been there to tell this horror," the 55-year-old priest, director of the pastoral center at Konjamendi in the Indian state of Orissa, told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from his hospital bed Aug. 28.
Following the Aug. 23 murder of a Hindu leader, Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, by Maoist extremists, Father Chellen said Hindu mobs started attacking Christian centers in Kandhamal, the district where the slain leader was based.
When a Hindu mob of 500 people broke into the pastoral center around noon Aug. 24, Father Chellen said he fled through the backyard with another priest and a nun.
"It was heartbreaking for us to watch from a distance the entire complex go up in smoke," said Father Chellen, who had supervised the construction of the center that opened in 2001 and could accommodate 200 people.
"They vandalized everything and set it on fire. It has been reduced to ashes," he added.
As the three watched from a distance, some other priests told them to flee.
"We fled to the jungles and came in the night to take shelter in the house of a Hindu friend and spent the night there," Father Chellen said, adding that the second priest left them to join other priests.
The following morning, he said, the Hindu family moved the priest and nun to an adjacent vacant house and locked it to give the impression that no one was inside.
However, the Hindu mobs overheard the priest speaking on his cell phone, broke into the room and dragged him and the nun outside.
"They began our crucifixion parade," said Father Chellen. The gang of about 50 armed Hindus "beat us up and led us like culprits along the road" to the burned pastoral center.
"There they tore my shirt and started pulling off the clothes of the nun. When I protested, they beat me hard with iron rods. Later, they took the sister inside (and) raped her while they went on kicking and teasing me, forcing (me) to say vulgar words," said the priest who has cuts, bruises and swollen tissue all over his body and stitches on his face.
"Later both of us, half-naked, were taken to the street, and they ordered me to have sex with the nun in public, saying nuns and priests do it. As I refused, they went on beating me and dragged us to the nearby government office. Sadly, a dozen policemen were watching all this," he said.
Angry at his plea to the police for help, the mob beat the bleeding priest again.
Later, a government official and members of the mob took the priest and the nun to the police station, where Father Chellen said he was kicked in the face.
"The four-hour ordeal ended when a senior police officer arrived in the evening," said Father Chellen.
The priest said one of the most hurtful things about the incident was that some local Hindus whom he knew were watching the events and ignored his requests for help.
Later, the priest and nun were taken to a nearby police camp, he said.
"They were very kind to us, gave us clothes and slippers," said Father Chellen.
On Aug. 26, the priest and the nun were taken for medical tests. That afternoon they were sent by bus to Bhubaneswar.
Father Chellen said he was admitted to the hospital Aug. 27, while the traumatized nun was taken to a convent. He said the plans called for him to be moved to Mumbai for treatment.
Asked about the how the nun coped with the trauma, Father Chellen said: "We had no option and were simply following their commands. We resisted as much as we could. This is like being tortured for Christ."
END

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