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Two Catholic priests, a catechist, and two nuns near the village of Gangadhar, in the Balasore diocese, in the eastern state of Odisha, on August 6, 2025, India, were ambushed and attacked on August 6th. This is where a mission station belonging to the parish of Jaleswar is located. The Catholic bishops of India described the incident as "disturbing and out of place."
About 70 members of the Bajrang Dal (literally "Bajrangbali Brigade," a militant Hindutva organization that forms the youth wing of the Vishva Hindu Parishad, or the World Council of Hindus, ed.) were the perpetrators of the attack. All were "falsely accused of religious conversions."On August 6, Father Nirappel, parish priest of Jaleswar, and Father Jojo, from the Joda parish in the diocese of Balasore, went to the Gangadhar mission for a memorial Mass on the second anniversary of the death of two local Catholics. Along with two nuns and a catechist, the group arrived at the village around 5:00 p.m. The ceremony took place after 6:00 p.m., as farmers were returning from the fields during the ongoing planting season.
As they were returning home from the funeral around 9:00 p.m., the attack occurred. “Less than half a kilometer from the village, in a narrow, wooded area, a group of about 70 men from the Bajrang Dal was waiting for us,” Father Lijo said, according to a statement from the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CCBI). “First, they attacked our catechist, who was riding a motorcycle. They brutally beat him, dismantled the motorcycle, emptied the fuel tank, and threw him away,” the priest added.
The attackers then went to the priests’ car, forcibly detained it, and hurled insults. “They physically attacked us, pushing us, assaulting us, and brutally beating us. They punched us, stole our phones, and kept shouting that we wanted to turn them into Americans, converting them by force. They shouted, ‘You can’t make us Christians anymore,’” the priest continued.
Despite the village women’s pleas to the group and their clarification that the priests and nuns had been invited to a moment of prayer, the attackers did not stop. “It was a premeditated ambush. They brought their media to create a false narrative,” Father Lijo stated.
After about 45 minutes, the police arrived on the scene. However, even in the presence of the police, the crowd continued their insults. Father Lijo informed the officers that their phones had been forcibly taken away, but no one in the group admitted to having them or returned them. “The police told the group they would take us to the police station for questioning, but in reality they were just saving us from further violence,” concluded Father Lijo, former director of the Balasore Social Service Society (the diocesan branch that deals with social issues), deeply saddened by the incident. “I never imagined something like this could happen in the Jaleswar area. We were simply performing a service and were attacked and humiliated with baseless accusations. The media is also complicit. They don't verify the facts. This false narrative must be corrected by the truth.”
Father Jojo, a guest priest from the parish of Joda, said he was deeply shocked by the unprovoked attack: "I had only come to celebrate Mass. I never imagined such hostility for such a peaceful and sacred gesture."
The episode shocked the local Christian community and raised serious concerns about the growing climate of intolerance and mass violence in Odisha. The Catholic Bishops' Conference of India (CBCI), which represents all Catholic bishops of all three rites present in India, expressed its deep dismay at the attack (See video above). Edited from Agenzia Fides
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