By Matters India Reporter
New Delhi: A packed Deputy Speaker’s Hall at the Constitution Club in the national capital witnessed the release of a book detailing the delay of justice to the victims of anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal, Odisha.
The 304-page book, “Kandhamal: introspection of Initiative for Justice 2007-2015,” by two New Delhi-based women lawyers also narrates the continued discrimination against Christians of eastern India.
Vrinda Grover and Saumya Uma on Kandhamal present through the book the first comprehensive investigation of the justice process in one of the most traumatic cases of communal violence targeting the Christian community in India.
The book is jointly published by Media House of the Capuchins and the United Christian Forum.
Justice A P Shah, who released the book in New Delhi, spoke eloquently about the book with his own experiences and failure of the justice system in tackling communal violence.
Senior lawyer in Supreme Court, Raju Ramachandran, and senior journalist, Hartosh Singh Bal also addressed the gathering. The two authors spoke shared their own experiences.
Some survivors of the violence also attended the program and shared the feelings with the audience. All agreed that the Kandhamal case is the failure of the criminal justice system which needs strong overhauling.
The book was earlier released on February 5 at Bhopal by Cardinal Oswald Gracias, president of the Conference of Catholic Bishops of India. The cardinal released the book during the annual meeting of Latin-rite bishops.
“This book examines whether nine years later, closure and justice have any resonance in the lives of the victims of the anti-Christian violence in Kandhamal’, the authors say in their note.
Kandhamal, one of the poorest districts in the state of Odisha, ranks dismally low on the Human Development Index. In December 2007 and again in August 2008, Kandhamal witnessed widespread and organized attacks on the Christian community.
Human rights groups estimate that around 100 people were killed, including disabled and elderly persons, children, men and women. More than 600 villages were ransacked; at least 6,500 houses were looted and burnt; at least 54,000 people were left homeless; 395 churches and other places of worship, were destroyed.
“It is both striking and disturbing that the pattern of impunity and injustice that defines other instances of communal and targeted violence, including the 1983 barbaric massacre of Muslims in Nellie; 1984 anti-Sikh pogrom; 1992 attack on Muslim in Mumbai; the 2002 genocidal assault on Muslims in Gujarat; the violent uprooting of Muslims from Muzaffarnagar in western Uttar Pradesh in September 2013; defines the aftermath of the Kandhamal communal assault,” Vrinda Grover and Saumya Uma say.