"wrongful confinement, abduction and cheating" after apparently incorrect television reports led to a riot around the facility, Christian investigators said.
An estimated 500 villagers on Saturday, October 14, reportedly stormed the Lourd Matha Seva Ashram home for mainly mentally handicapped people in Thyagarathi village, near the town of Sagar, after two local television channels, Udaya TV and ETV, distributed ”false reports” apparently related to trafficking in human organs.
“Hindu radicals are behind the harassment of the Christian home, and they have levied several fabricated charges, including trafficking in human organs, against the Christians,” said Sajan K. George, national president of the Global Council of Indian Christians, a major advocacy group representing churches and mission groups.
"The arrested [workers) are send to jail for 13 days," he said in a statement monitored by BosNewsLife. The Lourd Matha Seva Ashram home is a part of 130 destitute facilities run by the Christian group Akasha Paravakal, George added.
CHRISTIANS IDENTIFIED
Those send to the Sagar jail include six men and two women identified as Chacko Thomas, Baby Charamalla and his wife Annama Thomas, Siby Joseph, Joey Chacko, Moses Muttai, Sridhara Earappa, and Agnes Peter.
Sub-inspector P.B. Hanummanthappa of the Sagar police station said in a statement that police had found charges of trading in human organs to be false but that the home had not complied with some administrative requirements, including burying two old people without obtaining a death certificate.
George questioned the evidence against the Christians, saying, “The Sagar police is
under the influence of [Hindu] radicals.” It was not immediately clear how the riots impacted the mental handicapped people living in the home.
POLICE REACTION
Sub-inspector P.B. Hanummanthappa of the Sagar police station said in published remarks that police had found the charge of trading in human organs to be false but that the home had not complied with some administrative requirements, including burying two old people without obtaining a death certificates.
There have been previous mob attacks on the facility in recent days, in which two Christian workers were injured, George added.
The violence comes amid growing concern about attacks against Christians across India, where especially Hindu groups have expressed concern over the spread of Christianity, human rights groups say. Christians comprise roughly three percent of India’s predominantly Hindu population of about 1.1 billion people. (With BosNewsLife Monitoring and reports from India).
