AICC demands resignation of K'tka Home Minister

Mangalore, Oct 5 (UNI) The All India Christian Council (AICC) condemning the police ordering village churches in Daxina Kannada not to hold Sunday worships and submit licenses to hold prayers had demanded that the state Home Minister who was responsible for issuing such an order and other senior police officers should be immediately sacked.

Addressing a press conference here John Dayal, Secretary General of AICC and member of National Integration Council (NIC) after his two-day tour of the rural churches in Daxina Kannada charged that the 'mocking tone of Home Minister V S Acharya, his pugnacious and continuing oral attacks on the church and on the Catholic Archbishop and Bishops, his threats to the New Life Churches and its pastors, his defense of Hindu Parivar assailants, his encouragement to religious groups to demand bans and meritorious on conversions have clearly showed his commitment to the fascist cause and conspiracy.

The Governor and the Chief Minister must sack him.

He demanded that if the police order census of those attending the Sunday prayers in Churches as in the case of notice issued by the police to Open Door Baptist Church at Bogtugudde, one of the rural church in the district, the police should issue such notices for census all temples, Gurudwaras and all other places of worship in the entire country.

The chief minister is no less pugnacious in defense of the Hindutwa Parivar and in his critique of the churches, would otherwise have shown himself to be condoning a well thought out and planned conspiracy against Christianity in Karnataka, he said.

Dr Dayal said 'the devastation of major Catholic and protestant in Mangalore city, the attack on women and specially the beating up of Nuns had shocked the conscience of the majority community in the state and the rest of India as much as has the rape of Nuns in Orissa.

He said that taking into consideration that the rule of law was inoperative on a widespread level and anarchy was prevalent in the affected districts of Orissa and Karnataka, the AICC would demand the Union government to send para-drop if necessary, contingent of the Indian army into the Kandhamal district where the writ of the state no longer run with continued violence against Christian since last 40 days.

He said it would also demand to sack the Home Ministers of Karnataka and Orissa together with their senior police officials and civil officers, proscribe immediately Bajrang Dal and VHP, conduct detailed investigation by CBI into the circumstances leading to the murder of VHP vice president Lakshmananada Saraswati and the organized violence which followed in the wake of the Final Yatra of the body and immediate adequate compensation without delay to the families of those killed and injured in the violence incidents.

Giving the updated details of in the anti-Christian violence incidents from August 24 to October 4, Dr Dayal said that in Orissa 14 districts have been affected by violence destroying 300 villages, 4400 houses have been burnt and 50,000 rendered homeless.

A total 59 people were murdered, ten Fathers/pastors/Nuns injured while two women were gang-raped, 151 churches were destroyed and 18,000 men and women and children were injured in the violence.

In Karnataka, he said 4 districts were affected and 22 churches were attacked and 20 Nuns and women were injured in the violence.

In Kerala three churches were attacked while in Madhya Pradesh four churches were damaged, one church was destroyed and attempts were made on another 4 churches in Delhi. One church was attacked in Tamil Nadu and two people including one aged priest and employee were murdered in Uttarkhand, he added.

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