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Sr. Nirmala visits Alapad amid tight security

By Our Staff Reporter

Sr. Nirmala Joshi, Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, comforting a bed-ridden tsunami victim at a relief camp in Alapad, near Kollam, on Tuesday.

KOLLAM, FEB. 15. It was amidst tight police security that Sister Nirmala Joshi, Superior General of the Missionaries of Charity, arrived at the tsunami-hit Alapad panchayat this morning to call on the victims housed at a relief camp run by the Quilon Social Service Society (QSSS). Though Sr. Nirmala wanted to visit other relief camps also, she was advised against that on security grounds.

Posters in protest against her visit were found pasted all over Alapad.

The posters questioning her visit were pasted by an organisation calling itself the `Hindu Raksha Sena' (HRS).

Police sources said that a couple of other well-known organisations could be behind the HRS and the posters.

The police said the HRS was a hitherto unheard of organisation. The police provided security to Sr. Nirmala following intelligence reports on a whisper campaign in Alapad against her visit.

The thrust of the campaign was that the visit was to encourage religious conversion and therefore it should be countered.

Floral tributes

On reaching Alapad at 9.20 a.m., Sr. Nirmala paid floral tributes at the grounds where many of those killed in the tsunami were cremated.

At the relief camp, she talked with many of the inmates and spent sometime with a woman, Maria, who is bedridden after being injured while escaping from the tsunami.

After praying at the St. Sebastian's Church at Azheekal, Sr. Nirmala also visited the church cemetery and prayed at the graves of those killed in the tsunami.

Addressing the people at the relief camp, she said that while one was at a loss for words to console the victims, the tragedy had at the same time served to make people all over the world open their hearts and pour out love to the victims.

``In spite of your sufferings, which I can feel, I encourage you all to bear it with patience, for God would soon provide for your needs.''

Actions of those who came forward with help, she said, were also an offering to God.

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