Author: Tapas Chakraborty
Publication: The Telegraph
Date: June 16, 2003
URL: http://www.telegraphindia.com/1030616/asp/nation/story_2071982.asp
Tension has been brewing here in
the serene woods bordering Nepal following police allegations linking the
missionaries and converted Oraon tribals with the Maoist Communist Centre.
Workers at missions are in a panic
after police detained two priests and questioned them for two hours on
May 27.
One priest, an Oraon tribal, has
reportedly been asked by Ramnagar deputy superintendent of police Rajkishore
Singh to close his office and leave. Police have so far picked up over
100 converted Oraon tribals, allegedly torturing them during a night- long
detention.
Singh has allegedly accused the
missionaries of helping the MCC and has said the police would not allow
Champaran to be turned into another Jehanabad. Jehanabad witnessed a bloodbath
in the 1990s following heightened Naxalite activities.
Bishop Victor Henry Thakur of Bettiah
diocese in West Champaran district reacted to allegations of MCC links
by saying: "Missionaries working for the deprived in remote areas of West
Champaran are being maliciously targeted and discredited by certain vested
interests."
Mission workers were all the more
angry on learning that West Champaran superintendent of police Ratan Sanjay
has written to his seniors about the alleged MCC links.
West Champaran police have launched
a crackdown on the MCC's terror apparatus following a spurt in killings.
The Naxalites are believed to be behind the killings of Bharat Yadav and
Bhola Mian at Charapapur Banbar village on the night of May 24 while the
two were returning from a BJP meeting in an adjoining village.
Two months ago, the MCC allegedly
blasted the house of a landlord at Ratanpurwa. Vijay Singh, a member of
the landlord's family, was murdered recently.
Police say there have been at least
25 killings in the last year.
MCC activity in the jungles here
had been low-key until recently. Operations were started by Oso, a Jawaharlal
Nehru University student in the mid 1990s, who was later arrested and is
still in jail.
Of late, a revamped MCC has championed
the cause of Oraon and Tharu tribals and has got a new leader, Sangma,
who reportedly hails from the northeast.
The missionaries appear to be caught
between the Naxalites and the police. They first faced flak when two colleagues
- Hilasius Kujur, director of the Ratanpur mission, and Tony Peuda of the
Adivasi Sabha mission - were named in an FIR filed over the May 24 murders.
How their names crept into the FIR
is a mystery, for the person who filed the complaint says he did not mention
their names.
The deputy inspector-general of
police, Bettiah, C.R. Casavan, says the missionaries' names may have crept
into the FIR due to groupism. "I am not sure about the involvement of missionaries.
They have been doing good work for the poor for decades," he said.
Inspector-general of police Jaswant
Malhotra echoed his sentiments.
Adding another dimension to the
problem is a group of social workers affiliated to the Rashtriya Swayamsevak
Sangh. The Vanvasi Kalyan Kendra allegedly launched a campaign over the
missionaries' supposed links with the MCC even before police had completed
their investigation. A section of the local media aired their allegations,
missionaries allege.
Bishop Thakur says: "This is too
big a cost for working towards the empowerment of impoverished tribals
and Dal- its. Today, two priests stand accused of working with a Maoist
outfit to turn tribals into Naxalites and the land into a modern Jehanabad."
But SP Sanjay admits having written
to his seniors about the missionaries' possible MCC links.
With things hotting up in the otherwise
peaceful jungle, many tribes are moving out due to fear of reprisals.
Father Joe, a mission director,
says: "The situation in the jungles of Balmikinagar resembles the situation
in Surguja district of the erstwhile Madhya Pradesh in 1998-99 when priests
faced a vicious RSS campaign."
