New Delhi - Authorities in India's eastern state of Orissa imposed a curfew in sensitive areas of Khandamal district Thursday after several houses belonging to Christians and a prayer house was set on fire, news reports said. Curfew was imposed in nine sensitive areas of the district after the acts of arson late on Wednesday and in the early hours of Thursday, IANS and PTI news agencies reported.
Rioting mobs clashed with the police when the latter tried to stop them from torching the houses in the Daringibadi, Udaygiri and Tikabali police station areas, officials were quoted as saying.
At least 75 houses and a prayer hall was damaged and additional forces have been rushed to these areas to control the situation, district administration officials said.
"The situation in the region is tense," Khandamal district collector Krishan Kumar said.
The security forces were finding it difficult to operate as the rioters had obstructed roads with logs and boulders, Kumar said.
At least 25 people have been killed and scores of churches and houses set on fire in Khandamal district, which lies about 400 kilometres west of Orissa capital Bhubaneshwar, since violent protests against the killing of a Hindu right-wing leader broke out on August 24.
Vishwa Hindu Parishad leader Laxmananda Saraswati and four others were shot dead by unidentified gunmen at his hermitage in Jalespata in Khandamal district on August 23. Saraswati had been leading a campaign against conversion to Christianity.
An estimated 24 million people in India are Christians comprising about 2.3 per cent of the country's 1.1 billion population, a majority of whom are Hindus.
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