(April 26, 2010) Church and activist groups in eastern India’s Orissa state have
demanded drastic changes to a proposed federal bill that aims to check sectarian violence
in the country. At an April 21-22 seminar in Bhubaneswar, the Orissa state capital,
52 activists, lawyers and Church people reviewed the Communal Violence (Prevention,
Control and Rehabilitation of Victims) Bill the Indian parliament expects to pass
this year. Most participants are associated with cases related to anti-Christian
violence in Orissa’s Kandhamal district in 2008 that killed more than 90 people, mostly
Christians, and rendered some 50,000 people homeless. Seminar participants demanded
a new committee draft another bill to tackle sectarian violence. Church workers and
activists working among Kandhamal survivors say police and the local administration
tacitly supported Hindu extremists who attacked Christians there. The seminar wants
the government to draft a new bill using an open, transparent and public process involving
jurists, activists, academics and legal experts. Vrinda Grover, a Supreme Court lawyer,
told the seminar the bill also provides immunity for political leaders and government
officials from punishment for their actions or negligence during sectarian violence.