With polls in their eyes, politicians play politics with rape

After initial hesitation, the administration has now admitted that a gang of 20 raided Priti Sharan, looted cash and property and raped four nuns in their mid-twenties over two hours during which no one responded to their cries for help.

The police today arrested a 30-year-old resident of neighbouring Runkhed village and recovered some of the looted property. “We now know which gang of professional criminals perpetrated thedastardly act. They will be in our net soon,” said DIG Indore VK Shukla who has been camping here for the last four days.

Though both the police and local Catholic church functionaries rule out any politics behind the incident and there’s no concrete evidence to suggest otherwise Madhya Pradesh politicians are vying with each other to mine the tragedy. Especially since the Assembly elections have been announced.

State Chief Minister Digvijay Singh flew to Gopalpura church on Friday to “apologise” to the Christian community on behalf of the Congress Government. But not before Bharatiya Janata Party state chief Nand Kumar Sai and the area’s influential Congressman-turned-BJP leader Dilip Singh Bhuria demanded his head.

BJP leaders, aided by an activist Governor Bhai Mahavir, point out that Madhya Pradesh has recorded the highest number of crimes against women especially rapes — during the Digvijay regime.

Not to be outdone, local Congress MP Kanti Lal Bhuria says that there are intellegencereports about belligerent Vishwa Hindu Parishad activists infiltrating into Madhya Pradesh from the neighbouring BJP-ruled states of Gujarat and Rajasthan to “defame” the Congress.

The bishops of Indore, Udaipur, Nalpur, Bhopal, Satna, Raigarh, Ambikapur and Ujjain, who rushed to Jhabua to protest are wary of all this. “We neither see it as a political act nor a part of any concerted campaign against the Church,” says Bishop Joseph Annathil of Indore.

Burglary and looting are common in Jhabua district and most witnesses said that loot was the objective of the gang of 20 criminals who raided the dispensary. They first pretended to have brought a patient and asked the four nuns living in the campus to open the doors. When refused, they broke in and started looting the church. The nuns were dragged out into the fields and then raped.

Convent looted, nuns beaten up

NEW DELHI: The All India Catholic Union (AICU) today claimed that armed gangsters looted a convent and beat up nuns in Baghpat, 50km from Delhi, on Thursday.

The incident occurred at the Yesu Christ Convent and school run by the Franciscan Clarist nuns, the AICU said, adding the chapel was desecrated and the cross torn out of the wall.