ANTI- Christian discrimination continues in Orissa.
According to a news report by Asia News, police in Pokala of Kandhamal district told Nimata Pradhan, the wife of Saul Pradhan, a Pentecostal pastor killed on January 11, to stop asking questions about her husband’s murder and instead withdraw her charges against Marda Pradhan and Baiju Mallick.
“We went to the police station four times to get the post-mortem report on my husband,” Nimata is quoted as saying in the report. “Instead of giving it to us, they advised us to withdraw our complaint. We refused to do it.”
In order to cover up the murder, police manipulated the investigation, claiming the pastor had drowned. His body was found near a pond.
Relatives and members of his congregation say that when his body was found the legs were broken and his face and chest showed injuries.
Rev Saul Pradhan had recently been threatened by local Hindu village leaders who had ordered him to convert.
In addition, some witnesses said that Manoj Pradhan, a Hindu extremist with the Bharatiya Janata Party who played a leading role in the 2008 anti-Christian pogroms, was instrumental in concealing the pastor’s body. Manoj Pradhan was recently convicted on murder charges.
When he was still at liberty, he ordered the mortuary doctor in charge of the post-mortem examination to hide the body and bury it right away, the report added.
