Karnataka - Bangalore   

Church attacks: CBI probe sought

decried:Archbishop Bernard Moras (second from right) at the press conference convened by the Karnataka Region Catholic Bishops' Council and the Karnataka United Christians Forum for Human Rights in Bangalore on Saturday.

Bangalore: In a strongly worded statement to the media, Archbishop of Bangalore Bernard Moras on Saturday rejected the Justice B.K. Somasekhara Commission report on the church attacks and pointed to several inconsistencies in its findings.

The report — which gives a clean chit to the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Sangh Parivar in their role in church attacks of 2008 — was “highly communal” and “propagandist” according to the Archbishop. He demanded a CBI inquiry.

Expressing “deep hurt” and “anguish” over the report, Archbishop Moras told presspersons that the commission has “failed to do justice to the Christian community of Karnataka”.

The report “absolves” persons and organisations responsible for the church attacks, thereby legitimising the position of the State, he said. While the report states that some of the attacks were deliberate, well-planned and fundamentalist, it fails to identify the persons and organisations behind them, said Archbishop Moras, who is also president of the Karnataka United Christians Forum for Human Rights.

The report is “divisive” and looks at the Christian community as “the other” he said and added that it reinforces stereotypes about the community. “Christians are a mere 2.1 per cent of the total State population … but are still being accused of mass conversion with the help of foreign funds,” he said. The report, however, failed to mention a single case, he noted.

He condemned the report's recommendations of a “special census” of religions and institutions, and “stringent financial check and audit” of the activities of pastors. “This forms an image of churches being anti-social institutions... As long as there are laws in the country to check unlawful activities by any citizen, we do not see the need for special regulations to check activities of churches,” he said.

The Archbishop demanded that the State Government hand over the inquiry to the CBI to bring out the truth on the violence on people and churches.

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