Last month, the display of a morphed image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus on a hoarding in Jalandhar unleashed violent protests in Punjab. The same image published in a textbook by a Delhi-based publisher led to accusations of blasphemy in the northeastern Indian State of Meghalaya. The defacement of the image led to communal riots in Punjab and unrest in other places.

Earlier, this picture was published by a Catholic magazine, Vachana Jyothi, owned by the Diocese of Neyyattinkara in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, on the cover page of its June 5, 2008, issue, forcing Bishop Vincent Samuel to take action on the editorial staff.

In Andhra Pradesh, the printing of the tarnished picture of Jesus led to violent reactions from Christian groups. On July 13 last year, a Telugu daily, Sakshi -- owned by Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, the son of the late Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, the then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh and a Christian -- published the distorted image of Jesus in an article on the teaching of Lord Jesus. This led to widespread protests by Christians.

Various Christian groups conducted rallies and staged demonstrations in front of the Sakshi offices in many towns and at its administrative office headquarters in Hyderabad. In a few places, the protesters ransacked its office, destroyed computers and furniture, and burnt copies of the Sakshi daily. Some went to the extent of filing a case against the management of the newspaper under different Sections of the Indian Penal Code, for hurting their religious sentiments.

The response of the Sakshi management to the unforeseen turn of events was an unconditional apology. Its chairman Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy expressed his apology through the electronic media on the same day. The next day, he published a box item on the front page of Sakshi titled "Prabhuva Shaminchu" ("Lord, Forgive") admitting the mistake, expressing his regrets unconditionally and requesting forgiveness from Jesus, readers and the Christian community.

The image in question used to appear on the very first row of the first page of “Google Images” when searched under images of Jesus. It was gathered from the web blog of a person named Joe Nassif, who seems to be a student of Parramatta Marist High School in Australia run by the Marist Brothers. His web blog is .

After several Christians, including this writer, wrote to Nassif requesting him to remove the image from Google, as it amounted to desecration and it could be published again inadvertently by others, causing offence and leading to disturbances, the abuse was reported to webmasters and the distorted picture of Jesus was removed from the internet.

Some who had downloaded the morphed image earlier may be using it inadvertently at times.

Their malicious intention, if any, needs to be verified before Christian groups react on such matters. A really effective and truly Christian response is called for on such occasions.

(The writer is the executive secretary of the Andhra Pradesh Federation of Churches).