TNN

Sasaram, Mar 9: The priest of a church at Badadhia village under Nasariganj police station in Rohtas district was shot at and seriously injured during an  attack on the church on Sunday morning. Four others, including two women, also sustained injuries in the incident.

According to police sources, the incident took place when priest Vinod Kumar James along with 70 others, including women, assembled for a mass at the church which came up in the village in 1990.

The attacker Rajesh Singh, a graduation student who the Rohtas SP later described as “mentally unstable”, hurled a bomb through the window of the church. When the inmates ran for cover in panic and tried to come out of the church, he stopped them at gunpoint. When James asked him not to do that, Rajesh fired in his abdomen. The injured priest was sent to Varanasi in a critical condition. The four others, who sustained splinter injuries in the bomb attack, were admitted to a local hospital.

The police recovered four live bombs and a countrymade pistol from the possession of Rajesh. Incidentally, Rajesh’s left hand had to be amputated after he was diagnosed suffering from cancer a few years back. He said the attack was in protest against the “forcible religious conversions” by Christian missionaries in the area.

Rohtas SP Vikas Vaibhav visited the spot and claimed the youth was “mentally abnormal”. The matter is being probed, he said. The youth later told local mediapersons that he would also have killed himself had there been one more bullet in the pistol. He said he has nothing to do with any political party or organisation.