A group of Christian organisations asked United Progressive Alliance chairperson Sonia Gandhi to advice the government to send army units to Orissa to maintain law and order in the wake of attacks on the minority community in the state.
The organisations also demanded that a Central Bureau of Investigation enquiry should be ordered into the murder of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader and the ensuing violence to trace the guilty besides providing immediate compensation to the victims of the violence.
"The Union government must authorise the army to move its troops into affected blocks of Kandhamal district where the local police and Rapid Action Force have miserably failed," John Dayal, member of the National Integration Council, said in his letter to Gandhi on behalf of the Christian organisations.
The letter demanded that urgent compensation and relief and rehabilitation of victims should be made as a large number of people are still hiding in the forests out of fear.
"The government must rebuild the houses (which were damaged in violence) and also rebuild every single church that has been destroyed," Dayal said in the letter. Dayal alleged that the Biju Janata Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party coalition government in Orissa "failed" in bringing a halt to the killing of Christians in the state.
Local factors led to Kandhamal violence