Vatican slams India religious riots as curfew is imposed

Bhubaneshwar, India: Authorities imposed a curfew in parts of an eastern Indian state on Tuesday after two people were burnt to death and more than a dozen churches torched in spiralling religious violence deplored by the Vatican.

Hundreds of police were deployed in three towns in Orissa's rural Kandhamal district as they tried to end two days of violence in which a Christian orphanage was also torched by suspected Hindu mobs angry over the murder of their leader.

Violence erupted after armed men killed a Hindu leader linked to the main opposition Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and four others last week, an attack Hindus blamed on Christians.

The leader had been heading a local campaign to reconvert Hindus and tribal people from Christianity.

The Vatican condemned the attacks, calling for "an end to all bullying" and a return to dialogue.

"It expresses its solidarity with local churches and the religious orders involved, and condemns these actions, which are an affront to dignity, peoples' freedom, and endanger peaceful civil coexistence," a Vatican statement said.

Separately, the Rome-based Italian missionary agency Misna said it had received reports that two Jesuit priests had been abducted in the area but had no further details.

A top body of Indian bishops counted 32 incidents of violence against Christians in Orissa over the past two days. In protest, it said some 25,000 Catholic schools and colleges in India would be closed on Friday.

Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Vatican's department for inter-religious affairs, told an Italian newspaper that the Vatican did not understand Hinduism as well as it should.

"I think my department should intensify our contacts with religious leaders," Tauran told the Corriere della Sera.

India's constitution is secular, but most of its billion-plus citizens are Hindu. About 2.5 per cent of Indians are Christians.