At a Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP) event marking the 18th annual Shradhanjali assembly and sacrifice day of Swami Lakshmanananda Saraswati, speaker Swami Jivanmuktananda Puri delivered a dangerous speech calling for Christian priests to be tied up and locked in boxes. He said a true tribute to the late leader would be to make Kandhamal free of churches and declared that crosses atop churches would be altered into swastikas. He asserted that no one would go to churches to study the Bible and that everyone would become Hindu. He further claimed that DNA tests of those who identify as non-Hindu would show that their ancestors were Hindu, asserting that everyone in Bharat is Hindu and that “this is a Hindu Rashtra.” He said Swamiji’s sacrifice should not lead to riots or conflict, but instead to making India “vidharmi-mukt” (free of non-Hindus).