Christians will hold three-day special prayers from March 4 at 100 places across the country for an end to the "attacks" on churches and the "hate campaign" against the community, a group of clerics said here. The pastor of the Jabalpur-based English Methodist Church, F J Valsalen, said on Sunday, "We are going to pray in the churches for three days from March 4 to 6. The prayers would be held in six districts of Madhya Pradesh including Indore, Jabalpur, Ujjain, Damoh, Gwalior and Bhopal.”
One of the organisers insisted that the prayers were not held for publicity purpose. "We are passing through turbulent time....Our churches are being attacked and false cases are being slapped on our ministers (clerics) and a smear campaign to defame us is being run. Forcible campaign ghar wapsi (re-conversion to Hinduism by right wing organisations) is underway to torment us," a cleric alleged.
He said that during prayers, "we are going to ask God to forgive these people, who are falsely persecuting us". Meanwhile, in a related development, the Rashtriya Isai Mahasabha (RIM) handed over a memorandum to External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj here demanding an end to the attack on Christians nationwide. RIM district vice-president B Alexander Vaughan said, "In the memorandum, we have demanded that the attack on Christians should be stopped and investigated immediately and hate speech and campaign against us should be checked."
Prime Minister Narendra Modi had recently assured the minority community that fanaticism will not be tolerated. "My government will give equal respect to all religions and will not allow any form of violence against them," he said at a function organised by Catholic Church on February 21 at Vigyan Bhawan in Delhi. In Parliament too, the Prime Minister had said that his Government will not allow any discrimination against any religion.