Don't limit devt of minorities to just Muslims: Catholics

Bangalore, Dec 11 (UNI) Welcoming Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's statement at the National Development Council about giving priority to development of minorities, the All India Catholic Union (AICU) today said the development process should not be confined to just the politically powerful minorities like Muslims, but also focus on the Christian community which had remained poor and under-developed.

Speaking at a press conference here, AICU President John Dayal said ''the Prime Minister stated that priority would be given to Dalits and religious minorities and took the name of only Muslims.

Though we agree that Muslims have remained backward, what made Dr Singh think that other religious minorities, especially Christians, were better off.'' He said AICU was interested in as well as disturbed by the outcome of the Justice Sachehar Commission and BJP's response to it.

The two-day AICU working committee meeting that ended here yesterday decided to urge the Union Government to set up a high-powered Commission on the lines of the Justice Sachehar Commission to study the economic and political disempowerment of the Christian miniority groups in the country, he added.

Dr Dayal said the AICU also urged the Government to grant Scheduled Caste status to Dalit Christians without waiting for the report of the Justice Ranganath Mishra Commission, which had been inordinately delayed. It also extended full support to Dalit Christian groups, now on a relay hunger strike before Parliament.

He expressed concern at the rising trend in violence against the Christian community in both the Congress and BJP-ruled States and demanded that suitable legal measures be initiated to end the anti-Christian regulations in Rajasthan, Gujarat and Madhya Pradesh, where the State Governments had failed to safeguard minority rights.

UNI RS GD SKB1640