[16][17] Hateful anti-Christian campaigns in Kandhamal had already begun in the late 1960s, and continued for a long time, creating violence against minorities at frequent intervals including the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s.

[24] A senior Home Department official said that the present struggle between the mostly Christian-Dalit Panas and the Kandh tribe, mostly pro-Hindus, was the outcome of the ethnic, social and religious divide that helped Maoists to set up their base.

While over 1200 churches and 400 Christian institutions became an eyesore for Hindutava forces, conversion was also a strong issue that had helped Sangh Parivar to strengthen its roots in Odisha.

[26] In his book Constructing Indian Christianities: Culture, Conversion and Caste, Chad M. Bauman argued that the Sangh Parivar leaders followed the same technique in the Kandhamal riots by linking local politics and clashes with broader national fears like extinction of Hinduism, a Christian demographic increase and even a 'Christian military coup', thereby providing justification for anti-Christian violence and also issuing a 'national call to arms' for the defense of the Khandamal Hindus.

[27] Human Rights Watch reported that the first wave of violence occurred on December 24, 2007 during an ice argument between Christians and Hindus over Christmas celebrations in the Kandhamal district.

A Christian group attacked a vehicle belonging to VHP leader Lakshmanananda Saraswati and in retaliation 19 churches were completely burned down and razed.

[32] On the evening of Saturday, 23 August 2008, unknown militants entered into the Ashram at around 8.00 p.m. and fired bullets from an AK-47 on the frail body of 84 years old Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati at Jalespata Vanabashi Kanyashram in Kandhmal District of Orissa.

[33] The attackers, estimated at thirty gunmen, were suspected of being Maoist insurgents but the Sangh Parivar family blamed it upon local Christian evangelical groups.

We will give a befitting reply.While the government held the Maoist insurgents of being responsible for the attacks, the Sangh Parivar groups blamed the incident on the Christians.

The police theory of suspected Maoist involvement was denied by Sangh Parivar leaders who accused militant Christians of murdering Lakshmanananda.

Activists from the BJP, VHP, the Hindu Jagarana Samukhya and the Bajrang Dal staged protests and blocked traffic in nearly all district headquarters towns in the next morning demanding the detention of the Lakshmananda's killers.

They must leave Orissa.Hindu mobs angered by the murders allegedly incited by Manoj Pradhan, an elected state legislator from the BJP, set fire to many Christian settlements.

Thousands of Christians were herded into temples and were forced to perform conversion rituals with their heads shaved, according to a fact-finding tribunal led by Justice AP Shah.

She reported that the mob paraded her on the streets in the presence of a dozen policemen[60][61][62][63] Eventually, four men were arrested for the attack, and a senior police office suspended over the delayed investigation.

[66] On 22 October 2008, the Supreme Court of India, rejected an appeal by the Archbishop of Cuttack, Raphael Cheenath, for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the incident and asked the victim to look at an identity parade of those accused to identify the culprit with the help of the state police itself.

[69] Government reports suggested that the violence resulted in at least 39 killed, over 365 churches vandalized or destroyed, over 5,600 houses were looted or burnt down, 600 villages ransacked and more than 54,000 were left home less.

[3] In its report, a CPI fact-finding team quoted officials admitting that in the month-long anti-Church riots in which VHP and Bajrang Dal played a central role, not less than 500 individuals were killed.

[58] On 14 October 2008, Cuttack Archbishop Raphael Cheenath moved the Supreme Court seeking ₹ 30 million as compensation to rebuild the demolished and vandalized churches in the riot-hit areas.

[80] In a press release made on 21 September, The National Commission for Minorities blamed the Sangh Parivar and Bajrang Dal for the communal violence in states of Karnataka and Odisha.

[1] The historical context of the Kandhamal violence is the spread of the ideology of Hindutva... A planned attack on the Christian minority in Orissa was a tragedy in the waiting period following the Gujarat pogrom of 2002 that killed over 2,000 Muslims and destroyed the community.

Kandhamal was an ideal place for such an attack because of the possibility to manipulate the strained dynamics of the relationship between both the Dalit and the Adivasi populations to satisfy the aims of religious extremists.

[85] Many Maoist sympathizers of south Odisha had initially denied the role of CPI-Maoist in the murder of VHP leaders that sparked off communal violence in Kandhamnal district.

Communist Party of India (Maoist) leader Sabyasachi Panda claimed that they killed Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his disciples at his Jalespeta ashram on 23 August, for his Anti-Maoist hate speech, in the state of Odisha and the tribal Kandhamal region in particular.

[89][90][39] At the time of the Kandhamal riots in 2008, the ruling government of Odisha, headed by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, was a coalition of the BJP and the Biju Janata Dal (BJD).

[91] In November 2009, after winning the elections again, this time without the support of the BJP and therefore free from political compulsions, re-elected chief minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik, claimed that the Vishva Hindu Parishad, the Bajrang Dal, and the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh were involved in the violence.

[92][93] On 4 September 2008, the Supreme Court of India issued an order on a petition filed by Catholic Archbishop Raphael Cheenath seeking a CBI enquiry and dismissal of the state government.

The order refused to dismiss the Odisha state government but asked it to report on steps taken to stop the wave of communal rioting that had claimed at least 16 lives.

In his petition, the Archbishop claimed that VHP leader Pravin Togadia carried out a procession with Saraswati's ashes after his cremation, an act that clearly inflamed further communal tension and rioting.

[94][95] However, it later emerged that Saraswati was never cremated in the first place (as a Hindu sannyasi, the holy man had already symbolically cast his physical body into fire while alive by wearing saffron robes, and set the soul free).

[96] On 29 June 2010, a fast-track court set up after the Kandhamal riots found Manoj Pradhan, a Bharatiya Janata Party politician and a Member of the Legislative Assembly of Odisha, guilty of murder of Parikhita Digal, a Christian from Budedi village who was killed by the mob on 27 August 2008.