The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Attacks on Christians: Sangliana to visit Dakshina Kannada

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 19, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Attacks on Christians: Sangliana to visit Dakshina Kannada

Staff Reporter

MP to go on fact-finding mission to Dakshina Kannada district

H.T. Sangliana

BANGALORE: H.T. Sangliana, Bharatiya Janata Party MP for Bangalore North, will be going on a fact-finding mission to Dakshina Kannada where Christian prayer groups are alleged to have come under attack from fundamentalist outfits at two places.

Mr. Sangliana told presspersons here on Tuesday that two incidents on April 9 and April 16, which was Easter Sunday, were only the latest instances of attacks on the community. Despite repeated attacks, neither the police nor the authorities was showing any interest in dealing with the matter.

The former IPS officer cited the incidents to show that Christians were being targeted by elements that had no respect for law or personal liberty. Last year, a prayer meeting at Balmatta in Mangalore was interrupted by a group of Bajrang Dal activists, which was accompanied by the police and presspersons with a video camera. The activists accused the organisers of the prayer meeting of trying to convert people to Christianity.

The other two were the incidents mentioned earlier, in which some persons assaulted a pastor and some other persons in Bantwal. In this case too the police arrived only to accuse the victims and order the permanent closure of the prayer hall. On April 16, Christians gathered at the Balmatta ECM Hall for Easter prayers, after which a training programme for women was being held, when a large group of men armed with clubs and cricket stumps barged in and threatened the people there and vandalised the place.

Mr. Sangliana said it was a matter of gratification that Fisheries Minister B. Nagaraja Shetty, who is in charge of the district, reacted positively to the incident, so also Minister for Minority Welfare Iqbal Ansari.

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