India: Christian Institutions Desecrated
By Joseph DeCaro
NEW DELHI (Worthy News)– The recent rape of an elderly nun in West Bengal, India, was part of a premeditated attack against Christian institutions, according to Morning Star News.
Police reported that the seven suspects in the March 14 assault against the Convent of Jesus and Mary in Ranaghat had picked and planned their target well in advance.
At about 2 a.m., armed suspects stormed the convent compound after disconnecting its telephone lines and overpowering a security guard. Although they tried to destroy the compound’s closed circuit cameras, four of the 12 CCTVs recorded the faces of at least four of the intruders as they stole $19,255(US) from the school. After they had taken the cash, the gunmen gained access to the nun’s residence where they raped the senior-most sister for more than an hour. They then went to the chapel where they threw desecrated the communion wafers by throwing them on the floor.
“The pattern of desecrating the chapel and the sacred host is remarkably similar to the attack on the church in Vasant Kunj earlier in the year,” said the Rev. Vijayesh Lal of the India’s Religious Liberty Commission. “There is no doubt that the incident is not merely an armed robbery as it is made out to be.”
The unnamed nun said she had forgiven the men who raped her. After undergoing surgery for her injuries, Hospital Superintendent Atindranath Mondal said the nun was more concerned about the security of the school and its students than with her own personal trauma.