Minority Christians in India’s southern state of Karnataka are under an unprecedented wave of persecution, having faced more than 1,000 attacks in 500 days, according to an independent investigation by a former senior judge on the Karnataka High Court.
The spate began Sept. 14, 2008, when at least 12 churches were attacked in one day in the city of Mangalore, said Justice Michael Saldanha, who formerly served on the Karnataka court.
“On Jan. 26 — the day we celebrated India’s Republic Day — Karnataka’s 1,000th attack took place in Mysore city,” Saldanha said.
Saldanha conducted a People’s Tribunal inquiry into the attacks on Christians in Karnataka on behalf of the People’s Union for Civil Liberties chapter in Karnataka’s Dakshina Kannada district and the Karnataka chapter of Transparency International. There are just over 1 million Christians among Karnataka’s 52 million people. “Attacks are taking place every day,” said Saldanha, chairperson of the local Transparency International chapter.
The latest attack took place March 17 when a mob of about 150 people led by the Hindu extremist Vishwa Hindu Parishad organization (World Hindu Council or VHP) and its youth wing, Bajrang Dal, stormed the funeral of a 50-year-old Christian, as reported by the Karnataka-based Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC).
According to GCIC, as pastor Sunder Raj of St. Thomas Church in Gijahalli in Karnataka’s Hassan district was about to begin the funeral service, the mob pulled the coffin apart and desecrated the cross the relatives of the deceased were carrying. They dumped the body outside, claiming that his burial would contaminate Indian soil and his body should be buried in Rome or the United States, GCIC reported.
With police intervention, the funeral took place later the same day.
Saldanha, blaming the state government for the attacks, said the ruling Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) in Karnataka had “outdone Orissa,” referring to another region where Christians in India have faced intense persecution.
Karnataka Home Minister V.S. Acharya denied the results of the inquiry led by Saldanha.
“The allegation of Karnataka having faced 1,000 attacks is absolutely false,” Acharya told Compass. “There is liberty in the state. Sections of the media are trying to hype it, and such claims are politically motivated. Karnataka is the most peaceful state in India, and the people are law-abiding.”
The wave of persecution in Karnataka began as fallout from the anti-Christian mayhem in eastern Orissa state, where Maoists killed a VHP leader in August 2008, with Hindu extremists wrongly accusing Christians. The attacks in Orissa’s Kandhamal district, the epicenter of the bloodbath, resulted in the death of about 100 people; 4,640 houses were burned along with 252 churches and 13 educational institutions.
Violent attacks have stopped in Orissa, but Karnataka continues to be volatile. In addition to the attacks, numerous Christians also have faced false charges of fraudulent or forced conversions throughout Karnataka.
“I have been to many police stations where complaints of [forced] conversions have been lodged against Christians,” Saldanha said, “and when I asked the police why they were acting on frivolous complaints, most of them told me that they had orders from above.”
Saldanha, in his report, which has not been publicly released, recounts that Christians “are dragged to the police station under false allegations, immediately locked up, beaten up and denied bail by the lower judiciary, which functions as the loyal partner of the police department and refuses bail on the grounds that ‘the police have objected.’”
The report states that 468 Christian workers in rural areas had been targeted with such actions since September 2008. (BP)
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