"My own priest, who had to flee, is also staying in the refugee camp under the protection of the Central Reserve Police Force sent by the central government."

Archbishop Cheenath said his life had also been threatened and claimed, "I was one of the prime targets for elimination. The Hindutva forces floated a theory that we conspired to kill Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati, which is absolutely baseless. We had nothing to do with that."

"That is the story they put out in order to justify their attacks on Christians, even though the Maoists had clearly claimed responsibility for killing the Swami. Three times the Maoists came on TV, to claim responsibility for killing the Swami. There is no need to accuse any other community because the Maoists did it," he added.

"This is a game they are playing. They put out another theory that the parish was asked to make a plan to kill the Swami and the Maoists were inspired by our conspiracy. They published forged minutes of the parish, saying that the archbishop had asked the Maoists to kill the Swami, even though we had a press conference and said we had nothing to do with this and that this is a forged document," Archbishop Cheenath said.

"Then we went to the high court to file a petition. We have also filed a case for defamation and the high court has asked the man who is behind it to given an explanation within four weeks," he added.

Image: Christians attend a mass prayer at a refugee camp in Bhubaneswar. Photograph: Parth Sanyal/Reuters.

Also see: '50000 Christians still hiding in forests'

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