Thousands of Christians belonging to various denominations today held a protest meet here to voice their rejection of the Justice B K Somasekhara Commission of Enquiry report on attacks on churches in Karnataka in 2008 and demand a CBI probe on the issue.
Victims recall horrors of attack

August 15, 2010, will be etched in the memory of Pastor S R Satish’s memory. On that day, as the entire nation celebrated Independence Day, he was attacked at his church by about 40 people.Worse, he had to spend the next three days in Mandya’s K R Pet jail, not knowing the reason for his imprisonment.

Satish said “It was a Sunday and we were conducting prayers at K R Pet when these people attacked me asking me to stop the prayers.”
“A man named Vinod, claiming to be a Bajrang Dal activist, came with about 40 men and warned me,” says Satish. “They threatened to kill me.”

“But the good thing was that the ‘lord’ gave me an opportunity to comfort at least five inmates of the jail who confessed to their crimes and wanted to be relieved,” Satish said. He still goes to the same church and continues what he calls “spreading the word of the lord.”

For Bangalore Pastor Peter Paul, the day was October 26, 2010. After being attacked by goons who doused him with petrol in an attempt to kill him, Paul was imprisoned for five days.

Paul says he was caught unawares when a gang of men barged into his home-cum-prayer hall and forced him to stop the prayers.

When he refused to do so, Paul claimed he was beaten up and dragged out of his house where the gang poured petrol on him and were about to burn him alive...

“...Thank the ‘lord’, the police came and arrested me,” he said, but added that it was unfair on the part of the cops to put him behind bars for no valid reason.

While Satish and Paul were victims of “false cases”, Pastor Benny and his wife Thangamani still have tears in their eyes while bringing out their burnt Bible.

Sometime in February last year, Benny claimed that a few men from the Sangh Parivar stopped him from praying and beat him up.

Slowly pulling out the burnt Bible and wiping tears, Thangamani said: “They burnt the Bible. How can they do something like this in a country like India?”

CBI inquiry sought

Karnataka Chraistara Rakshana Vedike on Monday urged the State government to review the report of the Justice Somasekara Commission on the church attacks and demanded that the cases be handed over to the Central Bureau of Investigation.

Vedike State president Bhaskar Babu said the report had allowed the assailants go scot free and made the victims the culpritsThe protesters, including members of the clergy and lay community, today expressed their grievances and hurt sentiments over the findings of the the Commission. The protesters, who held placards, expressed their solidarity with those who had faced the brunt of the attack.

The Christians termed the report as "biased and one-sided" and sought a CBI probe on the issue. The protesters also demanded that the guilty be brought to book and the affected be adequately compensated.Three victims of persecution narrated their sad plight and the involvement of Bajrang dal and other Hindutva outfits in ther brutal attacks against them.The eyes of the congregation was welled with tears for the intensity of the persecution under gone by these believers

Last week, around 18 Bishops and community leaders held a Dharna against the report. The government had assured them that it would take steps to withdraw cases against 338 persons in connection with violence following attacks on churches in Mangalore and other places.

On January 28, The Commission in its report, had given a clean chit to the B S Yeddyurappa Government and Sangh Parivar outfits in the attacks on churches. It had cited circulation of "derogatory" literature with "insulting attitude" against Hindus and issues of conversion as the main reasons for the attacks