THIS BREAKING NEWS WAS RECEIVED BY US LATE LAST NIGHT, AT ABOUT 10.45 PM, LONG AFTER THE DATE OF THE OCCURRENCE OF THE INCIDENT. A VILLAGE PASTOR'S ONLY TEENAGED DAUGHTER HAS BEEN KIDNAPPED BY A FEW MISCREANTS, ALLEGED TO BELONG TO THE SANGH PARIVAR OUTFIT.
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Prayer
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Sahapur - Bhadrak (Orissa): Pastor Pravakar Barik is a resident of Gokulpur village at Sahapr Gram Panchayat, Bhadrak District of Orissa. This village comes under the Tihidi Police Station. The pastor stays there with his wife Jharana, his daughter Sunemia, and a son Simiyon. Also about 30 believers stay in the same village.The pastor holds the church worship services in his own house, which is being objected to by the local Sangh Parivar activists. Also, he is being regularly tormented on this issue in different ways ever since 2002. His only eldest daughter, Sunemia Barik (17+) also called Lovely, was studying +2 Commerce in Tihidi Aided College, which is 18 kms away from their house and she used to cycle up to 7 Kms and then travel by the local public transport daily, and attend the college classes. She had been busy preparing for her Final Year Exam, scheduled to commence on 12th March, 2011.

In the meanwhile, two trouble mongers, Khageswar Tarai (18), and Brundaban Tarai (18), of the same Gokulpur village, belonging to the Hindu fundamentalist group have been eve-teasing her and making all sorts of comments about her, practically every day, during the last 8 to 9 months, whenever she went to college from her village by cycle. Apart from resorting to the most vulgar language and obscene actions on the road, they also began threatening her through letters, and sometimes even throwing the letters inside her house, whenever the Pastor Pravakar Barik was away from the house. On learning about this painful mischief by the boys, the pastor complained about it to the Tihidi Police Station, in July last year, 2010. The police immediately went into action, and two police constables visited pastor’s house and after an investigation with Sunemia, they found that the complaint was genuine and then the police called those two miscreants along with their guardians to the police station and warned them not do so any further. The culprits, after the police intervention and warning, begged the pastor in front of the other villagers to forgive them for their misbehavior, and then they also gave an undertaking that they won’t repeat it any longer in the future.

After making the villagers believe that they have changed their ways, the two boys quietly joined hands with the local Hindu fundamentalist activists and began conspiring a plot against Pastor Barik and his family, especially against his daughter, and harm them in such a way that the pastor would not continue with his ministry in the village, out of sheer shock and shame. With an intention of taking revenge against the pastor, they hatched a foolproof plot to kidnap her just before her final examination.

On 25th February, 2011, at about 11.30 a.m, when Sunemia was returning home after attending the coaching classes by her college lecturer at Tihidi, she was forcibly kidnapped from the road by the above miscreants. She has not returned home till today. The kidnapers have either switched off her mobile or destroyed the sim-card as her cell phone has gone dead, ever since that day.

As his daughter did not return home till late into the night, the poor pastor went to the Tihidi Police Station at about 09.30 p.m, and filed a missing complaint. It was only the next morning that Pastor Barik heard to his utter shock, the heart breaking news spreading all over the place that Khagewar Tarai and Brundaban Budhia have kidnapped Sunemia with the help of some other young Hindu activists. Then he also heard that Khageswar had taken her to a Hindu temple of Goddess Kali and forcibly married her and after which he simply fled away forcibly taking Sunemia along with him, to some unknown place.

Terribly shocked and disturbed, the pastor went back to the same local Tihidi Police Station and lodged a complaint and the police also filed an F.I.R bearing no.47/2011 on 27.02.11. The police then arrested the father and the uncle of the kidnapper Khageswar on 28.02.11 from a place called Dhamra at Chandbali Block, while the others had gone hiding. The Police detained them for about 6 days for interrogation, and then let them of when they could not get any clues from them. We understand that the SDPO has been hinting at the possibility of the involvement of the Sangh Parivar activists in the crime, as they have been trying to exert their influence on the police.

There is no trace of Sunemia to this day, and the police, though were quite proactive in the beginning, seem to have become just casual after the accused have absconded. The disturbed pastor and his family are desperately running all over the place in search of their only daughter. The terribly harassed and helpless family is desperately seeking all possible help and prayer for support from all quarters. Please pray for them.