A Catholic priest of Sambalpur diocese has claimed that a Hindu girl, mistaken for a Christian, was raped by a group of Hindu activists before being burnt alive.
Father T.V. Peter disclosed October 4 that a fanatical mob descended on a Church-run orphanage in Bargarh district where 20-year-old Rajani Majhi worked, raided the orphanage, gang-raped her and set her on fire, August 25, as anti-Christian violence broke out in the tribal-dominated areas of the eastern Indian State.
Peter, who is the procurator of the diocese, is also said to have expressed his willingness to testify in any court of law Majhi had been raped and killed by the VHP goons at the Padampur village orphanage. “Soon after the VHP men raided the orphanage, I went to the spot and spoke to some eye-witnesses. The mob thought she was a Christian girl but actually she was a Hindu and was adopted by a childless couple.
She was working in the orphanage,” Father Peter was quoted as saying by a news agency. He also alleged that the policemen present at the spot remained mute spectators to the criminal act. Rajani was a student in Padampur Women’s College and worked at the orphanage to support her education. The orphanage houses children of leprosy patients.
However, a day after Father Peter making the allegations, the Sambalpur diocesan authorities have denied such a thing had happened in the orphanage. The official spokesperson of the diocese, Father Alphonse Toppo, told the media October 5: “No such information has come to us. If Father Peter told some people that Rajani was gang-raped, then it is his view. We have not come across any such complaint.”
Source: SAR News
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