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 Rewards are also offered for murdering Christians, destroying homes and churches and according to For Zion's Sake Ministries the violence is nothing new in Orissa, India, where India's Communist Party estimates that more than 500 Christians have been killed by Hindu mobs in Orissa since late August, 12 times more than official government claims of only 40 homicides.
JERUSALEM, ISRAEL (ANS) -- Hindu extremist groups are offering money, food and alcohol to anyone who murders Christians and destroys their homes.
According to For Zion's Sake Ministries (www.forzion.com) the violence is nothing new in Orissa, India, where India's Communist Party estimates that more than 500 Christians have been killed by Hindu mobs in Orissa since late August, 12 times more than official government claims of only 40 homicides.
But now the stakes are even higher -- and pastors have a bounty on their heads, the ministry says.
Faiz Rahman, chairman of Good News India, said Hindu militants are targeting Christian leaders, the ministry says the Christian Post reported.
"The going price to kill a pastor is $250," he said.
"Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake," (Matthew 24:9)
An article on the For Zion's Sake website says Rahman, a head of several orphanages in Orissa State, said he's helped 25 pastors to leave refugee camps, but 250 Christian leaders are still in shelters.
"All of the pastors are high value targets," Rahman told the UK-based Release International. "We've got to get them out of the refugee camps."
An All-India Christian Council spokesman said, "People are being offered rewards to kill, and to destroy churches and Christian properties. They are being offered foreign liquor, chicken, mutton and weapons. They are given petrol and kerosene."
One official said he personally authorized "cremation of more than 200 bodies" found in jungles after Christians were blamed for the death of Hindu leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati on Aug. 24. They continue to be persecuted even though Maoists openly admitted to murdering Saraswati, the article says.
It states: "Thousands of homes and churches have been destroyed, and an estimated 50,000 Christians have been forced to flee the violence. Mission Network News estimates 5,000 Christian homes have been burned and 200 churches ruined. According to the Christian Post, 30,000 people remain in government-operated refugee camps. Tens of thousands are living in forests -- many seriously wounded."
Father Manoj, based at the archbishop's office in Bhubaneshwar, said Christians remain in hiding.
"They are too scared to go home. They know that if they return to their villages they will be forced to convert to Hinduism," he said.
Religious rights group Barnabus Fund told the group Hindu militants "forced" Christians in Orissa to "convert" to Hinduism by threatening them with rape if they refused.
Neighbors reportedly gang-raped a Hindu woman after her Christian uncle refused to renounce his faith, according to reports.
Another Christian woman named Jaspina was told by neighbors, "If you go on being Christian, we will burn your house and your children in front of you." She and her family were forced to eat cow excrement to "purify" themselves of Christianity.
The For Zion's sake article says other Christians were doused with gasoline and told to participate in conversion ceremonies or be lit on fire.
This week, Hindu extremists said they have set a deadline for the capture of Saraswati's murderers. If the killers are not caught by Dec. 15, they promised to begin a massacre on Dec. 25, Christmas day.
According to the latest report, Orissa's Catholic bishops wrote an ominous letter to the state's chief minister. It read, "This conflict is a calculated and pre-planned master plan to wipe out Christianity from Kandhamal in order to realize the hidden agenda . of establishing a Hindu nation."
For Zion's Sake Ministries is a Jerusalem based non-profit, humanitarian aid organization -- established and dedicated to assisting the needs of newly arriving immigrants. For most, starting over in Israel is physically and emotionally, as well as economically, overwhelming.
After the slaughter of more than 6 million Jews in the Holocaust, the state of Israel was reborn miraculously in one day on May 14, 1948. God's chosen people began returning to their ancient homeland seeking refuge.
Thousands of new immigrants come to Israel every year to escape persecution in the form of anti-Semitism and economic and civil oppression. Over one million Jews from the former Soviet Union have returned home since 1988 alone, and their needs are staggering.
Most of these immigrants arrive in Israel with only the clothes they carry with them in their suitcases. The transition of starting over in a strange land is extremely difficult for most of the immigrants (Olim). Lack of employment, insufficient language skills, and a myriad of cultural challenges cause many to become discouraged and lonely. Because of these hardships, twelve percent of new immigrants choose to leave Israel.
For Zion's Sake Ministries assists these new immigrants spiritually and physically by providing humanitarian aid through its warehouse distribution of furniture, medicine, food coupons, and clothing. Direct financial assistance is given through its Adopt-an-Israeli Family program.
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** Michael Ireland, Chief Correspondent of ANS, is an international British freelance journalist who was formerly a reporter with a London (United Kingdom) newspaper and has been a frequent contributor to UCB Europe, a British Christian radio station. Michael has traveled to Albania and the former Yugoslavia, Holland, Germany and the former Czechoslovakia, Israel,and Canada. He has reported for ANS from Jordan, China, Russia, Jamaica, Mexico, and Nicaragua.
Used by permission Assist News Service www.assistnews.net
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