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‘Anti-India elements’ attacked Christians |
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June 29, 2000
NEW
DELHI (AP) - The national government summoned state officials and law
enforcement officers Wednesday to crack down on violence against
Christians.
"The guilty behind the recent incidents of attacks on churches must be brought to book irrespective of their political affiliations," Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani said in a statement opening the meeting. In recent weeks, fringe Hindu groups that are affiliated with Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party have been accused of encouraging violence such as vandalizing Christian graves, bombing churches and attacking priests and nuns in several states.
"This government is determined that security for all is provided, and especially for the minorities," Advani said Tuesday, as he announced that the attacks on Christians would be included in the meeting that had been called to discuss terrorism, illegal immigration and strengthening of police forces. Christians constitute about 2 percent of India's 1 billion people, 82 percent of whom are Hindu.
Although
Hindu-Muslim clashes have been frequent in India, attacks
on Christians have occurred only in the last two years, after Hindu
nationalist-based parties came to power in New Delhi and
Advani raised the possibility that "anti-India elements" - the government's code word for Pakistan - were involved because violence is occurring in areas that had no record of it in the past.
The government often accuses Pakistan's intelligence services of fomenting ethnic and religious friction in India. Pakistan denies it.
In
a meeting Monday with Pope John Paul II, Monday Vajpayee said his
government was committed to stopping the attacks on Christians, but he
called them "aberrations" unconnected to any group or
One of Vajpayee's chief critics, the late New Delhi Archbishop Alan de Lastic of the Roman Catholic Church, frequently complained at the government's lack of action and failure to speak out against groups that condemn Christian activity. The Hindu groups often say they are acting because Christians trick poor, illiterate people into converting, or bribe them.
Vajpayee has said there is no evidence of such activity, but the groups affiliated to his party continue to repeat the accusations.
De Lastic, who was buried Tuesday after dying in a car accident in Poland last week, said on June 9 that India's Christian minority is facing its most serious challenge in 50 years. He said there was "a definite strategy and plan at the national level ... to intimidate Christians." Christian groups have named Bajrang Dal and Vishwa Hindu Parishad as instigators of the violence, and say gangs that attack worship services often are led by known members of the groups and also local politicians of Vajpayee's party.
Both groups appeared before the National Human Rights Commission on Tuesday to deny any role in the recent attacks on Christians, saying they opposed conversion but were also against violence. As the security meeting convened in the capital, the Bajrang Dal conducted one of its frequent paramilitary training camps at Ayodha, where a Hindu mob destroyed the Babri mosque in 1992, setting off riots that left 2,000 dead. "The party workers are being trained to counter anti-Hindu forces," said Suresh Jain, a national Bajrang Dal leader at the camp where members were trained in stick fighting and target-shooting with air guns.
"It is high time that the minorities learn to respect the Hindus," said another leader, Vinay Katiyar. "If they fail to do so we are left with little choice but to stand for our religious rights."
The camps are being conducted near Lucknow, capital of Uttar Pradesh, where a large number of attacks on Christians have occurred and where the government is right-wing.
Christians have asked for a national investigation of this month's stabbing death of a priest and the subsequent death in police custody of his cook, the only witness to the murder. In a recent case near Agra, site of the Taj Mahal, when Christians went to a police station to report a gang attack on their worship service, the officers arrested the Christians, accusing them of trying to convert people. The practice is protected under India's constitution. Surendra
Jain, a Bajrang Dal leader, told the Human Rights Commission
that Christians were conducting a "hate campaign" without any
evidence, adding, "Not one member of the Bajrang Dal or
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