Churches will not be demolished: Govt. Official

Sept. 13, 2011: A top government official in India has assured the Christians in Orissa’s Kandhamal district that orders to demolish churches or stop reconstruction of damaged church buildings will not be enforced. District Collector of Kandhamal Rajesh Prabhakar Patil told a delegation of Christian leaders that he would overrule the orders issued by junior officials to prevent church construction.
Kandhamal district officials had first issued the notice on August 12, in which they said the churches had been illegally built on government land in Nandagiri and Mondasora villages.
Displaced residents who had settled in the villages were given 30 days to vacate the land or face eviction, the notice stated.The eviction notice comes ahead of third anniversary of religious strife that tore through the state in 2008, killing more than 100 people and displacing an estimated 50,000 residents.