Anti-Christian Attacks in India - Ban Bajrang Dal

To
* The UN Secretary General
United Nations Organization
* Prime Minister of India
South Block, New Delhi 11
* Heads of States, incl. India
C/o Ambassadors, India & Abroad
* Human Rights Activists & International Civil Society

Dear World,

The Catholic-Christian Secular Forum (CSF) and thousands of others, representing civil society at large, wish to present this memorandum, with an SOS plea for action, before more lives and property is lost in the ethnic cleansing of Christians in India. I write this petition with tears in my eyes, knowing that our help will come from the LORD and those like you, whom He will use to get justice & freedom for HIS persecuted people. I promised the hundreds of victims babies, women, nuns-priests-pastors & innocent others - whom I personally met, that I would at least tell the world of their desperate situation and appeal to the international conscience to act by signing this petition.

The CSF is India's only ISO 9001:2000 certified NGO for "undertaking community development programs for human rights, social service, medical aid, education, charity & relief " of the laity, supported by the clergy. The certification is by the Joint Accreditation Service of Australia & New Zealand. I, Joseph Dias, as General Secretary of this Mumbai-based NGO have repeatedly visited the many states affected by communal violence, as part of various fact-finding missions and wish to urge all right-thinking persons to please join me and other concerned secular minded world citizens, in appealing to the above, to act before India flares up in communal frenzy, as has been in the past. Hundreds lives (as in Gujarat) can be lost and destruction worth millions of US$ wrought, if no action is taken.

Among those who have recently spoken out against the anti-Christian violence, include countries like Italy and EU nations, religious like the Pope, Swami Agnivesh, Cardinals & Bishops, besides heads of various NGOs, faiths & communities. These have been joined in by parliamentarians & prominent human rights crusaders, like Mahesh Bhatt, Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand, Ram Punjani, Dr. John Dayal, Dr. Abraham Mathai, Dr. Azimuddin A number of former Judges of the various High Courts (S. Suresh, Kolse Patil, Michael Saldanha, etc.) and Director Generals of Police (R.B. Sreekumar of Gujarat and FTR Colaso of J&K, etc.) have also lent their voice to the cause on various platforms, supported by The CSF and others.

Here is what we find horrifying & reprehensible :
1) The attacks on Indian Christians, Minorities and innocent others have not been restricted only to a single state but nationally across at least 7 states since last Christmas, where it first erupted in Orissa. Other states affected include - Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra, Chhatisgarh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Keralaand even New Delhi. The attacks are premeditated, carried out as a military-type operation, with clinical precision, not known to fail over the last 6 months and increasing by the day.

2) The attackers are the right-wing Hindu Saffron Brigade or its associates like Bajrang Dal RSS VHP, with the tacit approval of the state government and in most cases with BJP state governments or its sympathisers within the police and among officials, who abet & participate in the criminal destruction of life & property. The objective is to wipe out Christianity from India, marginalize Christians to the periphery of the mainstream, make Christians subservient to the majority, cripple the community economically, foist a Hindu party at the helm in the elections, perpetuate a caste-ridden Hindu society, convert tribals to Hinduism, re-convert minorities.. The union UPA government is dithering to act in view of incurring the wrath of Hindus, who comprise 80\% of Indias population.

3) The victims are thousands of low caste (Dalit) or tribal Christians in the rural areas and helpless clergy and laity in the urban areas, who are soft-targets. Most of these are denied their rights on conversion to Christianity by the Government of India. The Blessed Sacrament has been vandalized, cloistered nun-sisters attacked, crucifix & statues of saints desecrated, Bibles burnt & church-institutions torched with news being stifled, as media finds it not news if yet another Christian or Church is attacked. Our estimates are that at least
a) Over 50 Killed & 4,000 Houses Destroyed.
b) Dozens Of Nuns Raped & Priests Brutalized.
c) Church Workers Burnt To Death or Buried Alive.
d) Over 20,000 Dying in Slum-like Refugee Camps, etc.
e) Over 50,000 in the Jungles, in Need of Food & Medicine
f) Over 300 Churches, Cathedral, Tabernacles, Presbyteries, Schools, ShopsBurnt.

WE CALL FOR A BAN ON THE BAJRANG DAL AND RELATED MOB TERROR OUTFITS IMMEDIATELY for attacks that are unconstitutional, threatening the secular fabric of the country. The State of India has abdicated its responsibility and duty to protect Indian Christians, by not taking the state governments to task & failing to protect the life and personal liberty of Indian citizens. The Government of India has failed to ensure freedom of conscience and free profession, practice and propagation of religion the very rights enshrined in the Constitution of the country (Articles 21 & 25) and in the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR Articles 18 & 27) to which the Government of India is a party.

We call for immediate provision of relief and adequate compensation to the victims as per ICCPR Article 2.3.1 to those Internally Displaced Persons, according to international conventions. There must also be independent fast track courts constituted to try the culprits and enforce rule of law immediately, besides, the following demands, which must be seriously considered :

1. Foreign funding to such Hindu NGOs needs to be stopped and travel advisories needs to be issued to tourists not to come to these states.
2. Order the CBI to investigate into all aspects of the anti Christian violence in various states & into internal business-houses funding the hate-campaign of the Saffron Brigade.
3. Immediately take into preventative custody the culprits, after suspending police & government officials for gross dereliction of duty & joining in the ethnic cleansing.
4. Hand over especially, Kandhamal district, Orissa to the Indian Army & release hundreds of Christians under illegal detention in Karnataka.
5. Trace the thousands of Christians and hundreds missing, (abducted, injured or feared dead) or believed to be hiding in the forests.
6. Grant Scheduled Status to Dalit Christians and reservations to Christians, as provided to Muslims, to get them economically uplifted from their poor state as per NSSO survey.
7. Grant compensation to the churches & residences of priests / house-churches, etc. for losses incurred, which the government is not presently doing, since it is not felt to be politically correct.
8. Improve state of relief camps and jails, where thousands of Christians are languishing & which have inhuman living conditions, resembling Nazi concentration camps.
9. Constitute an Enquiry under the Commission of Inquiry Act & expand the terms of reference of the state enquiries instituted to fix responsibility and culpability on government servants & also on guilty politicians.
10. Provide adequate security to Christian religious places and institutions, as attacks are expected in the run-up to the elections & the fires of communalism are to flare-up. Active Christian NGO leaders need to be included by the Government in discussions pertaining to the community.

We also appeal to you to write to the Indian government to act on the following recommendations we have made :

A) Communalism is to be treated as a crime against the state, like terrorism and made a non-bailable offence. Mob terror is equal, if not worse than bomb terror.
B) Enactment of a legislation on the lines of Prevention of Atrocities on SC/ST Act, to protect minorities, from the brute force of the majority.
C) Moving Law & Order from the State list to the Concurrent list, in order that the union government can intervene, without flimsy excuses.
D) Permitting an Independent Enquiry by International Human Rights Organizations or an Independent Supreme Court Judge into the anti-Christian attacks, within a time-frame.

Urgently Yours in the name of all those suffering because of Christ & innocents of other faiths.

Joseph Dias, General Secretary, The CSF
+91 9769 55 56 57 [email protected]
Regd Office : 75, Vakola Village,
Santacruz (East), Mumbai 400055 INDIA

And other signatories from the world over ..