Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) president Mar Andrews Thazhath on Monday said the arrest of two Malayali nuns in Chhattisgarh is deeply painful, and that the matter had been taken up with Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Home Minister Amit Shah, and Union ministers Suresh Gopi and George Kurien.
Speaking to media persons at Mount St Thomas, the Syro-Malabar Church headquarters at Kakkanad, Thazhath said the Chhattisgarh incident is a clear violation of minority rights and religious freedoms guaranteed by the country’s secular Constitution.
He said that the nuns were arrested on trumped-up charges of human trafficking is extremely alarming, they have also been accused of religious conversion.
“These actions by the authorities infringe upon the Right to Religious Freedom and amount to a gross violation of the Constitution,” he said.
Stating that the Durg incident is just one among several recent episodes of persecution of Christians, Mar Andrews Thazhath said there have been cases where priests were even denied the right to wear cassocks and move freely within the country.
Mar Andrews Thazhath said the Chhattisgarh incident is a clear violation of minority rights and religious freedoms guaranteed by the country’s secular Constitution.
He urged the Prime Minister and the Centre to act urgently and provide protection to religious minorities so they may live and work without fear.
Responding to the incident,Cardinal Mar Baselios Cleemis ,president of the Kerala Catholic Bishops’ Council (KCBC) said that the church is pained over the arrest of the nuns in Chattisgarh.
Cardinal Cleemis said what is happened in Chattisgarh is an intrusion into the freedom of life and what is being questioned is religious freedom and it is an act that challenges the country’s Constitution.
“We are asking the Prime Minister to give all freedom to religious minorities. The rulers should speak up. They should be firm in what they say. We are seeing a similar situation in other states. No steps are being taken to prevent this from happening again,” he said
Meanwhile, the ruling CPIM-led Left Democratic Front (LDF) and the Opposition Congress-headed United Democratic Front (UDF) in Kerala on Monday came out against the BJP over the arrest of two Catholic nuns in Chhattisgarh. CPI-M leader and state law minister P Rajeev strongly condemned the incident and said that not only religious freedom, but even the Constitution itself, is under threat in the country.
Senior Congress leader and opposition leader VD Satheesan said the incident was the latest example of minority communities being targeted and attacked in the country.
In this connection,the Kerala unit BJP announced that a delegation led by its state general secretary, Anoop Antony would soon visit Chhattisgarh to look into the matter.
BJP Kerala vice-president Shone George said that the party’s state unit and central leadership had taken adequate steps to ensure that the nuns would not face any further difficulties, provided they had done nothing wrong.