The Supreme Court on August 29 set aside the Gujarat High Court’s 2012 verdict asking the state government to grant compensation for restoration of religious places damaged during the 2002 post-Godhra riots.
The court accepted the scheme formulated by the state government to provide “ex gratia assistance” of up to Rs 50,000 to all religious places, including mosques and temples, which were damaged or destroyed during the communal riots, on par with the relief granted for destruction of houses.
Nine years ago, Christians in the Kandhamal district of Odisha, India suffered the worst attacks against Christians in modern times in the country.
Around 100 people lost their lives and more than 56,000 lost their homes and places of worship in a series of violent riots by Hindu militants that lasted for several months.
But since the devastation, the local area has seen an “unprecedented” increase in religious vocations, including Sr Alanza Nayak, who became the first woman from her area to join the order of the Sisters of the Destitute.
Sr Nayak told Matters India that she decided to dedicate her life to God through the poor and needy after she heard “how a herd of elephants meted out justice to the victims of Kandhamal anti-Christian violence.”
A tenth-grader at the time of the attacks, Sr Nayak said she remembers escaping to the nearby forest so she wouldn’t be killed.
A year after the attacks, a herd of elephants came back to the village and destroyed the farms and houses of those who had persecuted the Christians.
“I was convinced it was the powerful hand of God toward helpless Christians,” Sister Nayak told Matters India. The animals were later referred to as “Christian elephants,” she added.
After completing her candidacy, postulancy and novitiate with the order, Sr Nayak took her first profession on October 5, 2016, at Jagadhri, a village in Haryana. She is now a member in the Provincial House, Delhi.
On January 26, more than 3,000 people from Sr Nayak’s village of Mandubadi, honored her with a special Mass and festivities.
The Supreme Court has asked the National Investigation Agency to probe what has come to be dubbed “love jihad.”
This was done after the top probe agency told the apex court on August 16 that there was evidence to suggest that some extremist outfits linked to a banned group were involved in converting Hindu girls to Islam and their gradual radicalization toward the Islamic State’s ideology.
The bench of Chief Justice J.S. Khehar and Justice D.Y. Chandrachud took on record a sealed report of the central agency’s preliminary findings, reports telegraphindia.com.
State police chief Loknath Behera has said that there is no confirmed case of ‘Love Jihad’ reported in Kerala.
The report, which appeared in a section of the media saying the state police chief has confirmed that ‘Love Jihad’ is there in state, is wrong, the DGP said in a statement issued on August 26, 2017.
“I only said that we are keeping an eye on the allegations from various quarters that there is radicalization through conversion using various means taking place in Kerala. The Supreme Court has ordered an inquiry into such an allegation in one case (Hadiya case). So it is our duty to find out whether that is correct or not,” he said.
