Criminals attack Church facility in Odisha state in India

MUMBAI, India – A bunch of criminals looted the SVD Divine Phrase mission in Odisha, a state in western India, on April 10.

A press release from the non secular order stated 11 folks entered the lecturers’ quarters which is at St. Arnold main college within the night and threatened the employees and the lecturers.

The college is within the village of Bagdehi, greater than 15 miles northeast of Jharsuguda, the headquarters of the Divine Phrase congregation’s India East province.

After looting their valuables and taking their cellphones, the criminals locked them up in a room and strictly ordered them to not shout for any assist.

At gunpoint, they then requested a girl employee to take them to the confreres’ residence threatening that they’d kill her daughter who was together with her if she didn’t agree. Out of concern, the employee confirmed them the rooms of the confreres from outdoors.

A message the provincial despatched stated the attackers left the mission round 1 am on April 11 carrying money and valuables.

The provincial stated the criminals first entered the lecturers’ quarters the place eight ladies lecturers resided. They forcefully took their gold chains, earrings and cellphones at gunpoint.

“The lecturers had been silenced and compelled to shift to 1 room and the intruders locked the room from outdoors. In addition they destroyed their mobiles and requested them to stay silent or get killed,” the official stated.

At gunpoint, they requested a girl employee to take them to the close by monks’ residence. They threatened to kill the girl’s little daughter who was together with her.

The criminals first broke open the grill of the presbytery the place 4 monks lived.

Father Christopher John, who was nonetheless awake, seeing the grill open, went out to examine. The intruders, who had been hiding, assaulted him and destroyed his cell phone.

“The looters after getting into their residence thrashed the monks with curtain rods and chairs, tied their fingers and legs and locked them in a room,” the provincial stated.

In addition they destroyed their mobiles and one laptop computer and searched the rooms and looted cash amounting lower than 100,000 rupees ($1,200).

The assaulted monks managed to untie one in all them, who referred to as the police with a cellphone that had escaped miscreants’ consideration. He additionally referred to as a employee, who lived near the mission. The employee opened the monks’ room and the monks then opened the room of the lecturers and staff.

The monks went to a medical facility managed by the Handmaids of Mary nuns for first help.

The police later took the monks in an ambulance to the District Hospital in Jharsuguda.

On being knowledgeable, some monks from the Provincial’s Home rushed to the hospital. They took the 4 injured clergy again to the mission after their therapy.

The provincial home later contacted the police concerning the crime. The monks and the lecturers “are nonetheless below trauma,” the provincial stated.

Archbishop John Barwa of of Cuttack-Bhubaneswar in Odisha stated the archdiocese by no means anticipated a thief to return to the church.

“This was a distant rural space. There’s a railway station close by, however it’s nonetheless a rural space,” he informed Crux.

“We should be alert and prepared; whoever anticipated that thieves would come, however that is the truth of immediately. We had been caught utterly unawares. That is our concern: The cash stolen was all accounted funds,” the archbishop stated.

The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of Odisha is Hindu – over 93 p.c. The Catholic inhabitants is simply 2.7 p.c. The state was the scene of a sequence of riots led by radical Hindus in 2008 that left roughly 100 folks lifeless, 1000’s injured, 300 church buildings and 6,000 houses destroyed, and 50,000 folks displaced.