1. Sodomy -
On November 11, 2000 Indian police arrested David
Berry, a 51 year old British national for brutally sodomizing
and perpetrating savage sexual abuse on at least 11 minor
Hindu boys in the holy temple town of Puri, Orissa. Berry
was assisted in his heinous crimes by Bijoy Behera, a
local schoolteacher and recent convert to Christianity.
The police were forced to arrest the two Christians following
a complaint lodged by a victim's father, Shree Banamali
Senapati. Initially despite his lodging of the complaint,
the police dismissed the case and refused to arrest the
perpetrators, but were forced to act when an angry mob
from the town besieged them and threatened dire consequences
if the guilty were not punished. Shree Senapati was in
tears as he related how Berry had sodomized his traumatized
12-year-old son at least eight times in his hotel room
and elsewhere. The boy related to the police that Berry
had forced him to have oral sex and kept him a virtual
prisoner in the hotel room for hours. He also revealed
that the Briton had sodomized at least 10 other school
children, all below the ages of 12. The children were
so traumatized by Berry's threats and Behera's beatings
that they did not dare to confess to the horrors visited
upon them until young master Senapati could take no more
and broke down to his father.
2. Stripping
- On October 9, 2000 a group of converted Christians
stripped a 12-year-old tribal Hindu boy and paraded
him naked in Gasukia village after he opposed attempts
to convert him to Christianity. He was taken to the village
school and brutally beaten for "refusing
to accept Jesus as his savior". This event naturally
led to communal tension as the Hindus were outraged at
the heinous crimes being forced on them.
3. Rape
– In January 2002, American Missionary
Reverend Joseph Cooper and Sam Benson were expelled
from India after Benson was accused of raping a young
Hindu girl and Cooper was accused of making inflammatory remarks
against Hinduism.
Both currently walk free and Cooper is a preacher in Connecticut.
Western Media only reported how Hindus had retaliated
against Cooper but did not mention that he incited locals
by saying Lord Krishna "spreads AIDS". American
Pastor Benson Sam and his wife Sally also were found guilty
of abduction and rape of a minor girl. The poor
orphan girl named Laly had allegedly been sexually abused
and harassed for four months at the Bible Christian Centre,
which had resulted in the issue of non-bailable warrants
against Sam Benson and his son.
4. Rape and Murder - In February 2005,
a 14-year old school girl in Orissa was raped and killed
and her mutilated body thrown to a nearby railway crossing
in Dhenkanal for refusing to convert to Christianity.
“One day, three Christian leaders, Prashant Ghose,
D. V. John Sarangi and Rabi Naik alias D'Souza came to
my home and asked me to convert to their religion, Christianity,”
Shri Bej said and added that they promised him help in
the form of money and material in his only daughter Jyotirmayee’s
marriage. However, Shri Bej turned down their proposal.
Then the local Church mandarins made a second attempt
trying to allure Shri Bej’s wife Yasoda. “‘If
you change over to Christianity, your daughter could get
a good bridegroom as there are many well-to-do persons
in our religion,’ Rabi Naik told me,” said
a weeping Yasoda to Organiser and added that on that day,
Shri Naik had threatened her with dire consequences if
her family did not adopt Christianity.
Following this threat, Bej’s daughter Jyotirmayee,
a student of Class VIII in Saudamini Smruti Vidyapeeth,
was reported missing from her school. Jyotirmayee’s
friends intimated her family about this. A concerned father
went to the police station and reported the matter. But
the local police did not take it seriously. The next morning,
Jyotirmayee’s naked mutilated body was found on
the railway tracks. With ample circumstantial evidence
of Jyotirmayee being raped and murdered, the local people
staged a road blockade demanding the arrest of the culprits.
In the FIR filed in the police station, Shri Alekh Bej
has categorically mentioned names of Raju Naik, Rabi Naik
and Ranjan Naik. “As I refused to convert, I had
to face this consequence,” Shri Bej reported.
Though the body
of Jyotirmayee was found on February 17, till February
21 no one was arrested. The Bej family is unable to understand
the inaction on the part of police to arrest the culprits.
The Bej family has accused the police station incharge,
Jyoti Ranjan Mohapatra, and DSP Mandardhar Sahoo of conniving
with the culprits and allowing them to go scot-free. With
district SP on leave, the law perhaps is yet to take its
course.
4. Molestation
- Hemalata Karua, 32, of Machhagarh village in
Keonjhar district in Orissa, India testified in court
that Australian Missionary Graham Staines had asked her
to convert to Christianity to avoid financial difficulty.
He also invited them to a jungle camp to be held at Manoharpur
after the Hindu festival of Makar Sankranti. Karua said
she and her husband converted to Christianity at the camp
on January 21, 1999, and were given new clothes. They
also attended a prayer meeting and a film on Christian
faith that evening. Later, they were served beef at dinner,
which she refused to eat, she claimed. She did mention
that neither she nor her husband had been offered any
money by the missionary to change their faith. Stating
that she stayed alone in a hut behind the local church
that night, Karua alleged that the missionary came there
later and attempted to grope and rape her. She
informed her husband the next morning and they left for
their village. Twenty days after the incident, she claimed,
the missionary's wife visited her to express regret for
his actions.
