BHUBANESWAR: Conversion and re-conversion were among the major factors which led to the riots in Orissa's Kandhamal district last year, a judicial commission probing the violence has said.

"Sources of the violence were deeply rooted in land disputes, conversion and re-conversion and fake certificate issues," Justice S C Mohapatra, heading the one-man panel, said in his interim report on the violence in Kandhamal which claimed 43 lives besides damaging many houses and churches.

He, however, did not elaborate on the conversions and reconversions issue.

Kandhamal had witnessed the killing of 38 Christians during the communal violence. A number of churches were burnt and thousands of Christians, mainly tribals, had to flee their villages after being targeted by Hindus in the wake of the killing of VHP leader Swami Lakshmanand Saraswati by Maoists last year.