Asia - Pacific
 Mob of Hindu radicals attacks nuns, teenage girls
 
 Mumbai, Mar 18, 2008 / 05:14 am (CNA).- A Hindu radical group on Saturday attacked two Catholic nuns and three teenage girls in a western Indian village as they prepared to hold a women’s educational program, UCA News reports.
 
 Sister Merciana Tuscano, one of the Carmelite nuns attacked, told UCA News that radical Hindu men and women attacked the nuns and girls in the village of Sanghoti in the state of Maharashtra.
 
  The mob shouted at the nuns, accusing them of “converting tribal people to Christianity.” According to Sister Tuscano, the mob “told us to leave the village at once and never to come back or else they would break our legs.”
 
 The Catholic group was in Sanghoti, a village about 75 miles south of Mumbai, to conduct programs for tribal women. The group’s activities include running adult literacy classes, encouraging self-help groups, and popularizing the government’s AIDS program.
 
 The Saturday program was to begin at noon, but at about 10:30 a group of about twenty men and twenty women arrived and began to throw away chairs and tables. Sister Tuscano said that when she confronted the group, “the women caught hold of me, pulled my hair and punched me hard all over my body.”
 
 She said that though she cried for help, the group dragged her out of the venue. The three teenage girls tried to rescue her, but Sister Tuscano said they were “hammered” by the mob.
 
 The second nun, Sister Philomena D’Mello, then arrived with other women for the program. Sister Tuscano told UCA News that Sister D’Mello was also attacked. "The mob rushed at her, caught hold of her, punched her all over. When she fell down in pain, a man stamped (on) her stomach twice," she said.