A historic St. Mary's Catholic Church in Agra city - world's famous for its Taj Mahal was vandalised on Thursday, the assailants broke statues of Mother Mary and Baby Jesus; they also tied Mother Mary's statue to a dog chain in what Christians called it as "an insult to the Christians".
According to Fr. Moon Lazarus, the Parish Priest who filed the FIR with the police, he stated that he heard the anti-theft alarm of his car parked in the Church premise and came out from the room with other people staying in the church campus on Thursday, early morning. They came to know that the side door window mirrors were broken and some people were running ot from the church compound.
"We shouted at them and they run away," he said.
Fr. Lazarus stated that Fr. Joseph Dabre and Fr. Rajan Das as well as Fr. John Roshan who inspected the church along with him found that four statues of Mother Mary are broken. "The glass case was also broken. The head of Baby Jesus statue was broken and kept in the hands of Mother Mary's statue. The neck of human size statue of Mother Mary is tied with dog-chain, which is a high insult to all of us," he said.
"The attackers have not only broken the images inside the church but they have played with the sentiments of Christian community," Fr. Lazarus said.
The priests have strongly condemned the shameful and cunning act of the unknown miscreants and have urged the police to take serious actions against people who did this "shameful act".
"It has been observed since last many days that Christians are targetted and their churches are vandalized which has created fear in our community," the parish priest added.
The historical St. Mary's Catholic Church was erected in 1923, it is one of the most visited churches in the city.
The incident came yet again two days after Finance Minister Arun Jaitley told NDTV news channel that attacks on Christians are not communal or political in nature but a law and order problem; although Christians have contested such claims as the incidents have increased in recent past.
Jaitley said, "We have found that all these incidents were law and order problems. Not a single case was carried out by the majority community ... nor was it of political nature or communal," he told the news channel late on Tuesday.
Christians have disagreed and had demanded that the Prime Minister should reign on the systematic attacks on Christians and vandalism of its churches and properties.
Half a dozen churches and a school have been attacked and vandalised since December, prompting Christians to come out in large number recently in Delhi, calling for the culprits to be caught and a sense of security should be restored to the community.
No one has been detained nor arrested in the vandalism of the Agra church so far.
