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Faith-healing centre ransacked in Sri Lanka

By V.S. Sambandan

MATTEGAMA (SRI LANKA), JAN. 27. The rubble inside a faith healing centre in this southern town, barely 20 km from Colombo, tells the tale of the continuing attacks against churches and other Christian places of worship. Broken panes and shattered statuettes are what remain in this 14-year-old faith-healing centre, located in a predominantly Buddhist-majority town.

In just about 10 minutes on Monday night, a group of unidentified persons descended upon the place. "They broke open the doors, smashed the statuettes, hurled petrol bombs, shattered the glass panes and left. It was all over in a short time,'' Srahi Bongso, of the faith-healing centre told The Hindu.

A convert from Islam, Ms. Bongso is disturbed over the recent attacks on churches. Trained in performing acupressure and acupuncture treatments, she took to faith healing she said, in pursuit of a `calling'. The attacks, in the name of countering Christian evangelism, have pained her: "This is not the Sri Lanka of my childhood.''

The Monday incident was preceded by several isolated attacks on Christian places of worship across the island last year. The President, Chandrika Kumaratunga, in an interview over State TV last week condemned the incidents as `horrendous' and said there were at least 30 attacks on Churches and other Christian places of worship in December.

Recent moves by the Government to introduce a bill to ban forcible conversions is seen by political observers as one of the factors that have emboldened hardliners. The most recent attack was on a Catholic church in a nearby town, Homagama, on January 14.

Local police, who have commenced investigations, see a common pattern behind the attacks and suspect the involvement of the same group.

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