Karnataka: Concern raised over religious profiling, police-Sangh nexus

A Christian delegation this week met Karnataka Governor HR Bhardwaj, urging his intervention to check the nexus between the politicians, police and government officials in harassing innocent pastors and believers in the state.

"After open and dare-devil attacks against us throughout the state during the last three and odd years, now the same fanatics use subtler and more cunning methods to undermine and subjugate Christians in the state, allegedly because of forcible and fraudulent conversions of Hindus to Christianity," the delegation expressed in a memorandum to Bhardwaj.

"The new method adopted to marginalize the Christians in the state is being executed through a nexus between the police, other government officials and the politicians. In the garb of maintaining law and order, the police are resorting to the sinister tactics of selectively profiling the Christians and their congregations in certain parts of the state," the memorandum stated.

The delegation mainly constituted of members of the Bharath Christian Okkutta (Indian Christian Association).

They pointed to the growing attacks on house churches and said often police worked hand in glove with the Sangh Parivar outfits. "Sometimes the police themselves without any rhyme or reason would suddenly scoop down upon them and disturb the entire worship, physically assaulting the participants, arresting the pastors, detaining them in the police stations for long hours and charge-sheeting them under various section."

In Sakleshpur, a pastor was issued a notice by the Sakleshpur Tahsildar questioning as to how he could conduct prayer service in a leased building, though that pastor has been carrying on with his worship services for nearly a decade there.

Another incident was in Kadur, where the Kadur Police Station Sub Inspector issued two notices demanding all the details connected with the church, the congregation members, with their names and even addresses.

"The whole thing looks quite frightful as such things, we have heard and read, only happened in erstwhile Russia, China and such other atheistic countries, certainly not in a country like ours that believes in God and respects all religion, both constitutionally and from the very hearts of its citizens," Christians stated in the memorandum.

In August this year, a meeting of Christian pastors was organized at the Police Commissioner's Office in Mangalore, and the meeting attended by about 25 pastors, was addressed by DCP Law & Order, and DCP Crime.

Though this meeting was apparently to assure protection to the pastors, in reality it was a ruse to get a list of all the pastors, and the details about their churches and members of their congregations, Bharath Christian Okkutta, an affiliated body of Global Council of Indian Christians (GCIC), said.

The group urged the governor to intervene to stop the profiling of Christians and their churches "so people can pray without any fear".

Early this week, Sangh Parivar activists attacked a group of six Christians who were praying at a believer's house in Coorg.

Alleging that the group was involved in forceful conversions, a complaint was registered and the believers were handed over to the police. The six Christians worked for meagre wages at a Coffee plantation.