Wednesday, December 26, 2007
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071227/nation.htm#7
Cong, Left flay attacks on Christians
New Delhi, December 26
The Congress today condemned attacks on Christians in Orissa and demanded the state government take immediate steps to stop the violence.
“The unfortunate incidents in Orissa are not good for the country, for any civilised society. The Congress demands from the Orissa government that it should take steps as soon as possible to stop the condemnable incidents,” AICC spokesman Shakeel Ahmed told reporters.
Asked if the Congress was for an intervention by the National Commission for Minorities in the matter, he said the state government should get some time to normalise the situation.
“If the situation does not normalise, then bodies like the Minorities Commission can be approached,” he said.
“The state government’s report is awaited. Sangh organisations are being named. The BJP is the ruling party’s (BJD) alliance partner and hence fingers can be pointed at the government. So the matter should be looked at carefully,” Ahmed said.
Meanwhile, the CPI and CPM also condemned the “organised attacks” against Christians and asked the state government to take immediate steps to protect the minority community through deployment of adequate security forces and arresting the culprits.
Maintaining that the attacks by VHP and RSS mobs took place on Christmas and the day before, the CPM Politburo said Kandhamal district has been, “for years, the target of communal activities against the Christian community”.
It said the state government and district administration had “failed” to take adequate measures to protect the minority community. — PTI
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071227/nation.htm#6
Christian body blames govt for attacks
Urges PM for police protection to Christians
Bhubaneswar, December 26
The Orissa unit of the All-India Christian Council today held the state government responsible for the attacks on churches and Christian organisations in Kandhamal district saying the action initiated by the administration was “inadequate”
“The government does not appear to have taken the matter seriously and the slackness on the part of the administration is evident,” organisation’s state unit president, Rev Pran Ranjan Parichha said.
Parichha alleged that Hindu fundamentalist groups had fomented all trouble.
Denouncing and deploring the attacks on particular community in Orissa, church leaders here today urged Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to prevent the massacre of the community and desecration of churches in the state.
In a memorandum on behalf of the All-India Catholic Union, the All-India Christian Council and the United Christian Action submitted to the Prime Minister, National Integration Council member John Dayal said the atrocities against the community in the state on December 24 and 25 were fast exploding into the kind of violence seen in the Dangs district of Gujarat during the Christmas of 1998.
Calling the escalating violence and the targeting of Church leaders a well planned conspiracy, he alleged that the main aggression was from the Kui Janakalyan Samiti with its entire attention on driving away the community from the region.
Dr Dayal appealed to the Union government to impress upon the Orissa government to ensure ample police protection to the community, its personnel and the institutions in the state. — PTI, UNI
http://www.tribuneindia.com/2007/20071227/edit.htm#1
Attack on churches
Attempt to terrorise a whole community
WHILE the people the world over were celebrating Christmas on December 25, the Christians in Orissa’s Kandhamal district were at the receiving end with alleged activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad destroying church after church. In the mindless violence unleashed on the community, one person was killed and several were injured. The attack was ostensibly to retaliate against the alleged manhandling of a VHP leader. That the VHP chose to convert some Christians to Hinduism on that day bears out that the whole purpose was to foment trouble. Orissa is one state where the so-called Freedom of Religion law is in force which makes it obligatory for the organisers of such conversion ceremonies to follow certain procedures. That the VHP has been paying scant regard for such a law on the specious plea that what it organises is not conversion but “home-coming”.
Despite all the potential for mischief, the district authorities failed to take any preemptive action. What’s more, they could not even protect the house of a minister from the communally surcharged lot. It is not the first time that Orissa has witnessed religious tension. The burning of Australian missionary Graham Staines and his two minor sons was preceded by several incidents of attack on the minorities in the name of protest against cow slaughter and religious conversion. It is the kid-glove treatment those behind such violent campaigns received that emboldened them to burn the missionary who was tending to the leprosy patients in one of the most backward areas of Orissa. There are feudal and pseudo-political forces that do not want the poor to get educated and know their legal and democratic rights for fear it would upset the caste-based social system.
The Orissa government is duty-bound to take stringent action against all those who desecrated the churches. It should also go after those who “attacked” the VHP leader and bring them to book. No excuse is good enough to terrorise a whole community. In fact, any leniency shown will be construed as a failure of the state to protect not just the life and property of the people but also their right to preach and practise their religious beliefs. What the Orissa government does in Kandhamal district will show how committed it is to uphold the rule of law and the religious rights of the people.
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