The Karnataka Human Rights Commission in southern India has criticized the state government for its tepid response to attacks on Christians and Muslims and their places of worship.“It shouldn’t just issue circulars but also show results,” Justice S. R. Nayak, the chairman of the commission, said, adding that just making a few arrests was inadequate, ucanews.com.
The commission asked the state government to hold senior police officials accountable for any attack on places of worship.
It also recommended setting up a committee at district headquarters to monitor communal tensions and deal with them effectively.
The commission directed the state administration to send within two months a detailed report on attacks on places of worship from 2007 to 2010 and the outcome of the investigation and prosecution.
It said the report should also contain details of the people accused, those who had absconded and the steps taken by police to trace them.
Hindu extremists launched attacks on Christians and their institutions in September 2008, three months after the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party came to power in Karnataka state.
They claimed that some Christian leaflets had contained derogatory remarks about Hinduism and its gods.
Other attacks have been in response to alleged forced religious conversions. But the commission on Sept. 28 said that the matter should be left to the law to deal with.
“It is for the rule of the land to decide if there are any cases of forced religious conversion,” Nayak said.
Sajan K. George, president of ecumenical Global Council of Indian Christians, said the commission’s decision, if implemented in earnest, would “be good for the Christian community in the state.”
Christians constitute 1.9 per cent of the state’s total population of 53 million people.
SIC: CTH/ASIA
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