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orissa violance
Midnight Christmas mass was attended by thousands of Christians amid tight security across Orissa, including Kandhamal district that had witnessed widespread anti-Christian violence earlier this year.- Christians living in relief camps in Orissa's volatile Kandhamal district, where communal clashes since Aug 23 have claimed at least 35 lives and rendered thousands homeless, are scared to return to their villages although officials claim that violence is on the wane.
Union home minister Shivraj Patil, who was asked by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh at Friday's Cabinet meeting to come out with an appraisal of the situation, is understood to have sought a report from the Governor.
Fissures seem to have surfaced in the ruling BJD-BJP in Orissa after VHP leader Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati's killing and violence in its aftermath.
At least seven people were killed taking the toll to nine in two days of escalated violence in Orissa's Kandhamal district in the backlash of killing of a VHP leader as curfew was clamped in all major towns of the district.
