A Hindu leader has claimed that the rape of an elderly nun last weekend was part of "Christian culture".

Surendra Jain, general secretary of the Vishva Hindu Parishad (VHP), yesterday said,

"It is a Christian culture to exploit nuns,” he said. “We don't do such things."

The VHP is a right wing organisation which uses a nationalist ideology to promote 'Hindutva' – equating being Indian with having a Hindu faith.

The VHP regularly holds "reconversion" programmes, where Indian minority communities are encouraged to turn to Hinduism. The group has claimed that conversion to faiths other than Hinduism, including Christianity, is "the root of terrorism".

Speaking yesterday, Jain insisted that the rape at a convent school in West Bengal was not a religiously motivated attack, and instead pointed to sex abuse scandals which have rocked the Catholic Church in recent years.

"The Vatican received 5,000 complaints of sexual exploitation in five years prompting the pope to appeal for legalization of gay sex," he said, according to the Times of India.