Tension has gripped an Orissa district after members of Bajrang Dal, the group accused of killing Australian missionary Graham Staines, burnt an effigy of Christ to protest conversions.
Police officials said about a dozen activists of the Hindu radical group forced their way into a local church in Tileibani in the state Thursday, brought out thousands of religious books and burnt them.
District police chief L.D. Naik said they had also misbehaved with a woman.
Two cases have been registered against the 12 suspects in connection with the incidents. All of them have been absconding since Thursday, the official said.
"Tension is mounting in Tileibani block as a result of which police patrolling has been intensified," Naik told IANS.
Adequate security arrangements have been made around the churches located in sensitive areas of the district, he said.
According to police officials, the Bajrang Dal activists gathered in Tileibani on Thursday afternoon to protest conversions of Hindus to Christianity, burn the effigy and to submit a memorandum to the district administration.
It had started last week when the activists had forced their way into a house in Ambulpali village in Deogarh district after some local residents had complained that three Hindu tribals in the village had converted to Christianity last year.
A Bajrang Dal activist Dara Singh has been sentenced to death for the brutal killing of Graham Staines and his two minor sons, who were torched while they were sleeping in their vehicle in the state's Keonjhar district in January 1999.
Twelve of Singh's accomplices were sentenced to life imprisonment for the crime that came amid a campaign against conversions.