JAIPUR: Christian religious leaders here have expressed concern over the reported move of the Bharatiya Janata Party to curtail the fundamental rights of the minorities in the country by enacting legislation similar to the Freedom of Religion Bill, recently passed in Rajasthan, in all the BJP-ruled States. Such a legislation curtailed the fundamental rights enshrined in the Constitution to practise, preach and propagate one's own religion, the Church elders, who met here on Thursday to discuss the Rajasthan Bill, said.

"The Christian denominations are concerned about the intention behind the legislation enacted recently in Rajasthan. There is reason to worry as BJP president Rajnath Singh is talking about introducing such laws in every BJP-ruled State," Bishop D. K. Sahu, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in India, said talking to media persons. Bishop Ignatius Menezes of the Catholic diocese of Ajmer, Bishop Collin C. Theodore of the Rajasthan Diocese of the Church of North India and Enos Das Pradhan, Chairman of NCCI's National Commission, also addressed the press conference.

"The so-called Freedom of Religion Bills by now passed in six States in the country have in fact nothing to do with freedom. They are instruments of oppression of the minorities," Bishop Sahu said. "The Rajasthan Bill is on the same lines as the ones passed by the States of Orissa, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Chhattisgarh and as such part of a coordinated strategy targeting religious minorities," the Bishop charged. Five Bishops belonging to Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox churches— Bishop Menezes, Bishop Joseph Pathalil of Udaipur, Bishop Oswald Lewis of Jaipur, Bishop Theodore and Bishop Sahu— who met here at the St. Anslem Church in the morning later went in a delegation to meet Rajasthan Governor Pratibha Patil.

The Church leaders said they had a meeting with Union Minister for Minorities A. R. Antulay in Delhi on April 25. The groups, under the joint banner of NCCI, are planning a meeting next month in Delhi to discuss the micro aspects of the BIll . "Rajasthan's was the sixth Bill in the category. This is a growing tendency. We have to do something to stop it," Mr. Pradhan said. The Bishops were of the view that the penal provisions in the Bill against those carrying out the so-called forcible conversions were oppressive and illogical.

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