September 03, 2008	Wednesday	Ramazan 2, 1429

NEW DELHI, Sept 2: An Indian archbishop filed a petition in the Supreme Court on Tuesday requesting an impartial probe into recent Hindu-Christian violence in eastern India that has killed at least 11 people, a news report said.

Supreme Court Chief Justice K. G. Balakrishnan agreed to preside over a Wednesday hearing to consider the petition filed by Archbishop Raphael Cheenath of Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar, the Press Trust of India said.

Cuttack and Bhubaneshwar are cities in Orissa, the state where the violence took place.

The trouble erupted late last month with the killing of a Hindu leader in Orissa, which police blamed on Maoist rebels but Hindu activists blamed on Christian militants.

In apparent retaliation, Hindu hard-liners set fire to a Christian orphanage, killing a Christian woman and seriously injuring a priest. The violence has spread to include mob attacks on churches, shops and homes.

Cheenath’s petition called for an investigation into the violence by the Central Bureau of Investigation, India’s equivalent of the FBI, PTI said. Cheenath was not immediately available for comment.

Orissa has a history of Hindu-Christian clashes generally fuelled by Hindu suspicions about Christian missionary work among the rural poor.

Thousands of poor and lower-caste Hindus have converted to other religions, including Christianity, often in an attempt to escape the rigid confines of Hinduism’s complex caste system.

Hindu groups say Christian missionaries try to lure the poor and those on the lowest rungs away with promises of money and jobs. Churches deny that the converts were pressured or bribed.

Last year, four people were killed and nearly 20 churches destroyed in similar clashes in Orissa. An Australian missionary and his two sons, aged 8 and 10, were burned to death in their car in Orissa following a Bible study class in 1999.—AP