Over 100 residents in an Orissa village have applied to the government seeking permission to change their religion from Hinduism to Christianity.
Officials said 120 Dalit members in Badanka, Kendrapada district, have submitted that they want to convert to Christianity because upper caste residents were not allowing them to worship in the village temple.
According to law, anybody can change their religion by seeking permission from the administration. "So, we have sought permission in writing," said the group's leader Ashok Mallik.
The villagers have also threatened to stage a demonstration in front of the local administration's office from July 26 onwards if permission is not given.
Mallik said the group had had set up an ashram on wasteland belonging to the government in the village. However, the powerful upper castes forcibly occupied the land and the administration did not help either.
Humiliated, the group has decided to convert to Christianity, he said.
A local administration official refuted the charges calling them baseless. "We are conducting an inquiry to find out if anybody has encroached on government land," he said.
The Hindu rightwing group Bajrang Dal has also stepped into the picture saying that the temple was open to all and upper caste residents never opposed the entry of the Dalits.
State Bajrang Dal president Subash Chouhan alleged that local Christian missionaries have been trying to convert the village Dalits.
The issue of religious conversions has been a troublesome one for the state. Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons were torched to death while they were sleeping in their vehicle in the state's Keonjhar district in January 1999.
A Hindu radical activist Dara Singh was sentenced to death and 12 of his accomplices to life imprisonment for the crime that came amid a campaign against conversions.