Assistant parish priest and headmaster of the Banbira Middle School, Fr. Ignatius Bara of the Simdega diocese, received deep cut in his neck and succumbed to his wounds on the spot on September 12.
According to the vicar general of the diocese, Fr. Anand Jojo, Fr. Bara attempted to separate two groups – tribals and a mob of upper-caste Hindus - that were fighting over a judgment passed by the High Court of Jharkhand.
“The incident took place when some tribal people were in dharna (protest) near Chandtanga village of Tainsera panchayat in Banbira parish. Suddenly a Hindu mob came to chase the people sitting in dharna and began beating them up badly, resulting in the fight between the two groups. Fr. Ignatius Bara tried to separate the conflicting groups and pacify them. Because he intervened, the group opposing the protest attacked and killed him on the spot using a traditional weapon (balua, small knife),” Fr. Jojo said.
On September 12, the Adivasi Adhikar Raksha Manch (AARM or Tribal Rights Protection Forum) had organised a peaceful protest rally in Simdega to discuss the forthcoming local panchayat (local village council) elections. The AARM, which has 60,000 members, had called on the district residents to protest a decision by the High Court on reservation according to the Panchayat Extension Scheduled Area Act 1996 (PESA). The court’s decision sought to end preferential treatment for the Adivasi in the local village council. Until recently, they were entitled to 100 per cent of the council seats. But upper caste Hindus had challenged the practice before the High Court and won, giving them the means to terrorise the Adivasi into submission.
However, a mob of Hindus belonging to Shanti Sena (a local unit of the Hindu fundamentalist party, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh or RSS) armed with knives, arrows and swords stormed the rally.
Speaking to AsiaNews, Fr. Jojo said that more than 40 Hindu aggressors riding some 15 motorbikes tried to disperse the 3,500 demonstrators shouting and making threats.
“They shouted that Tribals should stop demonstrating and accept instead the court’s decision; they then started using violence,” he said. “But the Hindu mob was overpowered and Fr. Bara intervened and tried to calm and defend the demonstrators.”
Subsequently, Fr. Bara, who was traveling on a motorbike, was ambushed by some members of the Shanti Sena who attacked him and chopped off his neck with a traditional knife.
“The situation is tense but now under control,” said Fr. Jojo, elaborating that the district administration has deployed one company each of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) and Rapid Action Force (RAF) in the village.
Meanwhile Church leaders and local human rights activists have condemned the killing, calling it a “sinister hand of the nationalist Extreme Right.”
Regretting the incident, Cardinal Telesphore Toppo, chairman of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI), said that Fr. Ignatius has become a “martyr for peace.”
“It is very sad,” Asia News quoted the cardinal as saying. “He was trying to pacify the fuming mob that came armed to attack these peace loving people who were having a peaceful gathering.”
However, expressing optimism, Cardinal Toppo said, “I am not frightened by the situation. The Church has lived through many more dangerous times. You just have to look at its history and you’ll see that it bears witness through persecution and that it has come out stronger from it.”
Cardinal Toppo, who is a tribal himself, has requested the state administration to order an official inquiry into the killing of the priest.
The CBCI has separately asked the National Commission for Minorities (NCM) to order an inquiry into the killing of a Catholic priest in Jharkhand state’s Simdega diocese.
In a letter to the NCM member V.V. Augustine, CBCI Spokesperson and Director of Media/Information Office Fr. Babu Joseph said the Catholic Church in India is “shocked at the brutal killing of Father Bara.”
“The CBCI condemns the dastardly murder of Fr. Bara and urges the National Commission for Minorities to set up an inquiry and bring the culprit to book,” the letter said.
According to Fr. Joseph, the events that led to the priest’s murder clearly showed that activists of Shanti Sena were behind it.
“We can see the sinister hand of Extreme Right forces that profit from the tacit support of the government and have created troubles in the area. We demand an in-dept investigation and a judicial inquiry into this heinous killing,” said Fr. Jojo.
“We have appealed to the people of our community to refrain from any action that may lead to a fresh bout of violence,” said Tobias Soreng, director of Vikas Kendra, the organisation working for the development of the Christian community in and around Simdega.
“The identity of the guilty [. . .] must await the result of the formal investigations, but prima facie evidence points to the same political forces that have traumatised the entire tribal belt of central India from Rajasthan to Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Orissa, Chhatisgarh and Jharkhand,” said John Dayal, chairman of the All India Christian Union AICU) and member of the National Integration Council (NIC), in an interview with AsiaNews. “In these are states, Hindu extremists have distributed hate material and tried to open Hindutva schools and have carried out coercive ceremonies designed to reconvert people back to Hinduism.”
Promising to urge the Prime Minister to set up an inquiry into the incident, John Dayal added, “These are also areas where the upper castes, the rich and powerful and the timber and mineral barons are working together to disempower the Tribals and deny them even basic self governance.”
Meanwhile, the police have arrested four persons in connection with the murder of Fr. Bara. All those arrested were named accused in the first information report (FIR) filed on the basis of the statement of Fr. Amos Dungdung, a senior priest at the Banbira Church, Simdega police said.
Surojit Chatterjee
Christian Today Correspondent