ORISSA, India — After police in India in the eastern state of Orissa confirmed that Maoists killed Hindu nationalist leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, a Hindu extremist group circulated allegedly forged documents in an attempt to implicate a local church in the Aug. 23 murder.
The Hindu Jagaran Samukhya (Society for Revival of Hinduism) circulated documents saying the plan to kill Saraswati in Kandhamal district was made at a meeting at Bethikala Church May 25 attended by 17 people following a briefing and command from religious leaders, the Press Trust of India news agency reported Oct. 9.
Local Christian leaders responded by saying they will file civil and criminal defamation charges.
“Not only our signatures were forged; the contents of the documents were also fabricated,” Joseph Kalathil from the Catholic Archbishop House in Bhubaneswar and Prafulla Ku Sabhapati, president of the Bethikala Parish Council of Kandhamal, said in a statement.
On Oct. 6 Orissa state police confirmed that Maoists killed Saraswati, a day after the chief of the Orissa unit of the banned Communist Party of India-Maoist, Sabyasachi Panda, told NDTV 24×7 news that his organization was behind the murder.
“We left two letters claiming responsibility for the murders. But the (Chief Minister Naveen) Patnaik government suppressed those letters,” Panda said.
The Indian Express had reported that three Christians had confessed their involvement in the murder — after police tortured them into confessing a crime they did not commit, according to a representative of the Christian Legal Association.
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