Four Catholic priests beaten, looted in Odisha

By Matters India Reporter

Jharsuguda, April 12, 2024: Unidentified miscreants looted a Divine Word mission in Odisha, eastern India, after attacking four priests, teachers and workers living in the campus.

The April 10 incident took place at the mission at Bagdehi, more than 20 km northeast of Jharsuguda, the headquarters of the Divine Word congregation’s India East province.

The police have launched a probe into the incident.

“Some 11 looters entered the campus of St Arnold primary school at around 9.30 night,” Father Anuranjan Bilung, the provincial, told Matters India on April 12.

He said they first entered the teachers’ quarters where eight women teachers resided. The miscreants forcefully took their gold chains, earrings and mobile phones at gunpoint.

“The teachers were silenced and forced to shift to one room and the intruders locked the room from outside. They also destroyed their mobiles and asked them to remain silent or get killed,” the priest narrated.

At gunpoint, they asked a woman worker to take them to the nearby priests’ residence. They threatened to kill the woman’s little daughter who was with her. The frightened woman showed them the priests’ place from outside.

The miscreants first broke open the grill of the presbytery where four priests lived.

Father Christopher John, who was still awake, seeing the grill open, went out to check.

The intruders, who were hiding, assaulted him and destroyed his mobile phone.

“The looters after entering their residence thrashed the priests with curtain rods and chairs, tied their hands and legs and locked them in a room,” the provincial said.

They also destroyed their mobiles and one laptop and searched the rooms and looted money amounting less than 100,000 rupees.

A message the provincial sent to confreres and friends said the attackers left the mission around 1 am on April 11 carrying cash and valuables.

The assaulted priests managed to untie one of them, who called the police with a phone that had escaped miscreants’ attention.

He also called a worker, who lived close to the mission. The worker opened the priests’ room and the priests then opened the room of the teachers and workers.

The priests went to a dispensary managed by the Handmaids of Mary nuns for first aid.

The police, who came at 1:45 am, took the priests in an ambulance to the District Hospital in Jharsuguda.

On being informed, some priests from the Provincial’s House rushed to the hospital. They took the four confreres back to the mission after initial treatment.

The provincial house later contacted the Jharsuguda District Police Head Office and the local police stations at Bagdehi and Laikera for action.

At around 6:30 am, another police team reached the mission and started to investigate. After gathering information from the workers, the teachers, and the priests, the police filed a First Information Report.

The priests and the teachers “are still under trauma,” the provincial said.