India, May 18 -- Imphal, May 15, 2001 - remembered in 2026: Twenty five years ago, on a Tuesday evening steeped in prayer, the Salesian Novitiate at Ngarian, Imphal, became the stage of a tragedy that would etch itself into the memory of the Church in India. Inside the chapel, twenty seven novices from the hills and valleys of Northeast India, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Kerala knelt in Eucharistic Adoration. Candlelight flickered, hymns rose softly, and silence wrapped the young men in devotion - even as masked gunmen slipped in stealthily into the compound, their presence casting a shadow over the sacred calm of prayer.

The Confrontation The first to confront the masked men was the cook, ordered to summon the Novice Master, Fr Raphael...