Jan. 31, 2006 (CWNews.com) - Bishop Thomas Dabre of India's Vasai diocese was assaulted by a Hindu mob on Sunday, January 29, as he visited a home for impoverished children in a remote village in the western Maharashtra state.

About 200 Hindu militants shouted slogans and threw stones, damaging three vehicles that carried the bishop and several priests to Ghosali village, about 100 miles north of Bombay. Cardinal Ivan Dias condemned the attack as "a barbaric and unwarranted outburst of violence."

"This was intimidation of its worst kind," said the All India Catholic Union and Bombay Catholic Council in a joint statement deploring the attack. "Had it not to be for the strong opposition of the local villagers who repulsed the attack by the hooligans, something worse could have happened," said the national lay network in India.