More than a month after three Christian converts were hacked to death in Odisha state in eastern India, police continue to attribute the triple murder to a land dispute, even as relatives and rights groups point to tensions linked to the family’s recent conversion.
The victims, Jitendra Soren, his wife Malati Soren and their 15-year-old daughter, were attacked inside their home in Nialijharan village in Keonjhar district on Jan. 25, according to the United Kingdom-based advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide, which tracks religious freedom cases globally.
Giving an account of what happened, CSW said the family had attended a Pentecostal prayer service earlier that day and returned home. Relatives arrived at the house and accused the couple of practicing black magic, claiming their church attendance had caused illness in a niece.
Jitendra Soren denied the allegation and was pushed to the ground. As the confrontation escalated, the couple’s daughter intervened to protect her father and was struck with an axe and killed.
Malati Soren was then killed while attempting to save her daughter, and Jitendra Soren was attacked and killed while trying to flee.
Police have reportedly arrested three suspects in connection with the killings and alleged that a long-standing land dispute within the extended family may have contributed to the violence, according to Morning Star News.
The arrested suspects were identified as Laxman Soren, Baidyanath Soren and Sudam Soren.
Officers reached the site the following morning, recovered the bodies and sent them to Anandapur sub-divisional hospital for post-mortem examination before handing them over to relatives, reports Catholic Connect.
The couple’s younger daughter witnessed the attack and escaped, while an elder married daughter and a son who was studying away from home also survived.
Surviving family members later sought shelter with a family friend and reported feeling unsafe in the village.
Suguda Soren, the couple’s surviving son, told CSW tensions had been building since his parents converted to Christianity about a year earlier. He said relatives and neighbors accused the family of bringing misfortune and illness to the community.
The family had become the third household in the village to convert to Christianity in the past year, according to the U.S.-based persecution watchdog International Christian Concern. Suguda Soren said relatives had warned the family for weeks to stop attending church or “face death.”
The family’s eldest daughter, who follows the Hindu faith, filed the First Information Report, or FIR, a formal police complaint that triggers a criminal investigation in India. The document did not include any reference to anti-Christian aggression and treated the case as a land dispute between relatives.
In an op-ed published in UCA News, Christian rights activist John Dayal wrote that the Soren family killings fit a recurring pattern of violence against Christians in Odisha and across India, particularly in tribal regions.
Dayal also wrote that sections of the state’s media have aligned with police and political actors in downplaying or removing possible religious motives in such cases, and said the larger political climate in Odisha, alongside rising anti-Christian violence in states ruled by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, complicates efforts to fully understand the killings.
Advocacy groups say Odisha, particularly tribal, or indigenous, districts such as Keonjhar, has seen increased violence and hostility toward Christians in recent years.
The village lies near areas associated with earlier attacks on Christians, including the killing of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his sons in the same district decades ago.
