Mob Sought To Burn Alive Two Christian Families in Batala Church: Report

BATALA, Punjab, Mar. 04, 2010, 10.00 Hrs (SAR News):

The Punjab police are hiding the fact that hoodlums of rightwing Hindu groups in Batala tried to burn five Christians alive.

According to a report released March 2 by a fact-finding team, which visited Jalandhar, Ludhiana, Amritsar and Gurdaspur districts, including villages deep in the rural hinterland from February 22-25, and Chandigarh, the Christians were from two families who live in the Church of North India’s (CNI) historic Church of the Epiphany compound built in 1865.

The team included All India Christian Council (AICC) secretary general John Dayal, AICC Delhi regional secretary Rev. Madhu Chandra, Human Rights Law Network lawyer M. Adeeb and AICC assistant Marang Hansda.

Batala is a small business town in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district. On February 20, the CNI church was set on fire and all its furniture burnt. Attempts were made to destroy a nearby Salvation Army church, raised in 1958, where the pastor was seriously injured.

“We pleaded with the police to help, but they did not,” said Pastor Maj. Gurnam Singh.

Even as the larger group of attackers focused on burning the CNI church, a group of men armed with sticks and rods came to the CNI deacon’s house. The deacon, Victor Gill, and his wife Parveen, hid themselves under the bed. The assailants damaged the doors, tried to enter the room forcibly, and told the couple they would be burnt alive if they did not come out, the report finds.

Meanwhile, at a second CNI house, the group overturned a scooter, took out petrol and doused teacher Christopher Morris and his daughter Daisy with the fuel while the mother, Usha, cringed in their home. They tried to set the two on fire, but the matchbox had also been soaked in the petrol and despite three attempts to strike a match, the matchsticks would not ignite saving the family from being burnt alive. The police were watching. The fire brigade came later but was blocked by a mob for quite some time.

Police Bias: No police report has been filed on the attempted murders even as the top police and administrative officers enforced a one-sided “peace accord” on the local Christian leadership.

Christians were instructed not to press for charges immediately so that a number of Christian youths who were arrested--together with a few Hindu men--could be released.

The strategy of the assailants was eerily reminiscent of what was practised and perfected against churches in Orissa in 2008.

Police forcibly cleaned up the Church of the Epiphany. They removed burnt furniture and made the presbyter whitewash the walls to remove traces of fuel oil used in the blaze. This was done before a formal inquiry could be conducted by the government.

Violence background: The Christians, all of them of Dalit origin, were trying to enforce a closure or “bandh” in Batala markets to protest a blasphemous picture of Jesus Christ holding a can of beer in one hand a lit cigarette in another which appeared on roadside banners to celebrate the Hindu ‘Ram Nauvmi’ festival. The banners were sponsored by a coalition of local political, media and business leaders, together with the trading community which is almost entirely Hindu.

The Sangh Parivar reacted to the Christian protest by mobilising shopkeepers and youth in attacks that left many injured, two churches damaged, and clergy traumatised.

The fact-finding team noted that local shopkeepers routinely enforce closures e.g. a bandh during the last week of February to protest the execution of two Sikhs by the Taliban in Pakistan.

Police reaction: The police force was outnumbered and looked on during the violence.

Despite intelligence reports of the Christian anger and the Hindutva plans to counterattack, the sub-divisional magistrate of Batala, Rahul Chaba, PCS, said he could not enforce a quick curfew until late February 20 because most of the police force were sent to the Pakistani border nearby where Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram inaugurated a defence outpost.

By the time the police returned and a curfew was imposed, violence had already occurred. The curfew was relaxed February 22.

Results of violence: On February 21, protest rallies were held across the western districts of Punjab and in Chandigarh against the desecration of the churches. There were reports of police who broke up protest meetings in villages with lathi charges and indiscriminate arrests. At present, there are no Christians or Hindus in police custody barring the printer and publisher of the banners.

On February 23, Punjab Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal assured the AICC’s John Dayal, a member of the National Integration Council, that he viewed the matter seriously and has ordered officials to unravel the “entire conspiracy”. Dayal demanded a judicial enquiry into the incidents during the meeting.

Punjab’s Christian population is around 300,000, about 1.2% of the state population, mostly concentrated in Amritsar and villages in west Punjab. The government is Akali-BJP coalition elected in February 2007.