(May 13, 2011) Indian Church workers and social activists have voiced shock and dismay
at a ruling of the High Court of eastern India’s Orissa state to grant bail to two
men accused of raping a nun. “We’re aghast,” Bipra Charan Nayak, convener of the
Kandhamal Survivors Association, said on Thursday. On Monday, Justice Chittaranjan
Das granted bail to Pandit Bishimajhi and Jatia Sahu saying he could not find enough
evidence linking them to the alleged rape. The nun was allegedly raped on August
25, 2008 during anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal district. Bishimajhi and Sahu
masterminded the 2008 violence including the nun’s rape, Nayak said. The pair later
went into hiding, with the police only catching up with them in June last year. Nayak
said Bishimajhi was the local secretary of the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).
The police have named 30 people in connection with the alleged rape and have arrested
22 of them. Bishimajhi and Sahu were “guiltier than their cronies, who were involved
in the rape case,” Nayak added. Sister Justine Senapati, an activist, said there
are 15 cases against the two for organizing rapes, arson and killings.