Going rate to kill pastor: $250
- From: jose <josefsoplar@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:57:35 -0800 (PST)
Going rate to kill pastor: $250
Rewards offered for murdering Christians, destroying homes, churches
By Chelsea Schilling
WorldNetDaily
Hindu extremist groups are offering money, food and alcohol to anyone
who murders Christians and destroys their homes.
The violence is nothing new in Orissa, India, where India's Communist
Party estimates that more than 500 Christians have been killed by
Hindu mobs in Orissa since late August, 12 times more than official
government claims of only 40 homicides.
But now the stakes are even higher – and pastors have a bounty on
their heads.
Faiz Rahman, chairman of Good News India, said Hindu militants are
targeting Christian leaders, the Christian Post reported.
"The going price to kill a pastor is $250," he said.
Rahman, a head of several orphanages in Orissa State, said he's helped
25 pastors to leave refugee camps, but 250 Christian leaders are still
in shelters.
"All of the pastors are high value targets," Rahman told the UK-based
Release International. "We've got to get them out of the refugee
camps."
An All-India Christian Council spokesman said, "People are being
offered rewards to kill, and to destroy churches and Christian
properties. They are being offered foreign liquor, chicken, mutton and
weapons. They are given petrol and kerosene."
(Story continues below)
One official said he personally authorized "cremation of more than 200
bodies" found in jungles after Christians were blamed for the death of
Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on Aug. 24. They continue to
be persecuted even though Maoists openly admitted to murdering
Saraswati.
Thousands of homes and churches have been destroyed, and an estimated
50,000 Christians have been forced to flee the violence. Mission
Network News estimates 5,000 Christian homes have been burned and 200
churches ruined. According to the Christian Post, 30,000 people remain
in government-operated refugee camps. Tens of thousands are living in
forests – many seriously wounded.
Father Manoj, based at the archbishop’s office in Bhubaneshwar, said
Christians remain in hiding.
"They are too scared to go home. They know that if they return to
their villages they will be forced to convert to Hinduism."
Religious rights group Barnabus Fund told the group Hindu militants
"forced" Christians in Orissa to "convert" to Hinduism by threatening
them with rape if they refused.
Neighbors reportedly gang-raped a Hindu woman after her Christian
uncle refused to renounce his faith, according to reports.
Another Christian woman named Jaspina was told by neighbors, "If you
go on being Christian, we will burn your house and your children in
front of you." She and her family were forced to eat cow excrement to
"purify" themselves of Christianity.
Other Christians were doused with gasoline and told to participate in
conversion ceremonies or be lit on fire.
This week, Hindu extremists said they have set a deadline for the
capture of Saraswati's murderers. If the killers are not caught by
Dec. 15, they promised to begin a massacre on Dec. 25, Christmas day.
According to the latest report, Orissa's Catholic bishops wrote an
ominous letter to the state's chief minister. It read, "This conflict
is a calculated and pre-planned master plan to wipe out Christianity
from Kandhamal in order to realize the hidden agenda … of establishing
a Hindu nation."
.
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