Students of cinema will have understood what I am talking about -- Akira Kurosawa's elliptic classic Rashomon, a warning that we should never accept subjective testimony as absolute fact. Each of the four witnesses sounds credible, but their own prejudices colour their statement just enough to err on the side of dishonesty. ``Human beings are unable to be honest with themselves about themselves'' was how Kurosawa summed up the message. I am irresistibly reminded of Rashomon upon hearing the welter of confusing statements after another set of killing and rape in a secluded area. As in the film, we do know some hard facts. Gerald Staines and his sons were burned todeath. A nun was raped. But anything beyond that is really speculation to an extent.

Let us begin with the strange case of Rabinder Pal Singh, better known as Dara Singh, the mastermind behind the murder of Gerald Staines. In the wake of the triple murder, people have rushed to testify that Dara Singh was a Bajrang Dal activist. The Bajrang Dal in turn insists that he was in fact a henchman for non-BJP parties. Could it be that both are correct, about each other if not themselves?

I put it to you that such is the case. The Bajrang Dal will have a lot of explaining to do if it wants us to believe that Dara Singh was a total stranger to that body. But it does seem as if there is some truth to the fact that Dara Singh was -- perhaps still is -- protected by people on both sides of the political divide.

The records reveal that the district administration in Keonjhar had requested permission to arrest Dara Singh under the National Security Act long before the death of Staines. Yet for reasons that are stillundisclosed, no permission was received from Bhubaneshwar. It needs to be said that Orissa is not -- and never has been -- ruled by the BJP, but only by the Congress and Janata Dal. Why is it, then, that neither bothered to check Dara Singh's activities even after the local authorities raised the issue?

So much for what happened before Gerald Staines and his sons were burned alive. How did the Orissa authorities conduct themselves once the murders were committed? The answer is that they have botched up the job so badly that the words `criminal negligence' spring to mind.

The First Information Report (FIR) is the foundation of any police investigation, but the Orissa authorities appear bent upon building on quicksand. The FIR is in Oriya, but the person who supposedly filed it can neither read nor write that language. No court would accept such a shoddy document. And how has the information in that FIR been treated?

Fifty persons are named as direct or indirect participants in the murder of Staines. Ofthese, Dara Singh is still at large as everyone knows. But what of the other 49, seven `students' amongst them? Well, the police managed to lay hands on all of them. So far, so good, but mark the sequel.

They were all remanded to judicial custody. Space doesn't permit me to explain the difference between `bail', `policy custody', and `judicial custody'. Suffice it to say that the police can't interrogate someone in judicial custody. Are the Orissa authorities serious about investigating?

What is the point of arresting someone suspected of murder and then refusing to question him? I could understand a few being released after being questioned, since all 49 need not necessarily be guilty. But how can any responsible policeman, even the rawest ro-okie, squirm away from asking any questions at all? Come to that, would any policeman dare to do something so silly unless there was immense political pressure from above?

It would be easy to blame this wilful blindness on the fact that the BJP is in power inDelhi -- just as convenient, in fact, to blame that party for all the attacks on Christians both in Orissa and elsewhere. History suggests, however, that Orissa at any rate has had a patchy record beginning well before any BJP minister assumed office in Delhi.

The records state that there were 18 incidents of attacks on Christians in the calendar year 1986. There were 12 in 1987, two in 1988, and 13 in 1989. These were the Rajiv Gandhi years as you may or may not choose to recall. But did anyone raise the issue of Christians being persecuted at the time? (For the record, such incidents have been in single figures for every year since Rajiv Gandhi left office; it must also be noted that they have been on the rise since the Congress government took over from the Janata Dal in Orissa.)

However, Orissa apart, there is some bite to the claim that the BJP's rise to power has coincided with a spurt in attacks on Christian institutions. It has more than tripled in a single year, from 27 such incidents in 1997 to84 in 1998. Gujarat, a BJP-ruled state, accounted for 48 of those crimes. And it is also only fair to point out that the Dangs district, the one most racked by such incidents, lies on the borders of Maharashtra, another state with BJP ministers.

Of course, such statistics conceal as much as they reveal. The crimes in Gujarat weren't in the same league as events in Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. Nobody was killed and nobody was raped. That doesn't mean the authorities were not abominably negligent. But they have tried to make amends and about 200 miscreants are behind bars. How does that compare with Congress-ruled Orissa where Dara Singh's supposed accomplices are seemingly immune to the ordinary process of law?

It was, therefore, with some bemusement that I read one Congressman declaring that ``There has been no need anywhere but in Gujarat for the Union Home Minister to pull up the state government for casual negligence''. Only to be followed that same afternoon with the news that the Congress presidentthought otherwise, and had sacked the Chief Minister of Orissa. Oh well, I suppose guilt, like beauty, lies in the eye of the beholder.