Will Church, Islamists realise their mistakesIJ
The exoneration of Professor TJ Joseph, whose right hand was chopped off by Islamists in July 2010, by the Chief Judicial Magistrate Court at Thodupuzha in Kerala's Idukki district in the blasphemy case pertaining to the alleged insult to Prophet Mohammed committed through a question paper he prepared, has proved the Catholic Church management of his college, which sacked him from service, to be hypocritical. It has also shown the religious extremists to be inhuman and irresponsible. The issue started on March 25, 2010, after various Muslim organisations took out protest marches to the Church-run Newman's College in Thodupuzha against the perceived disrespect to Prophet Mohammed contained in a question paper that Mr Joseph, head of the Department of Malayalam, had prepared for an internal test. As the law and order situation showed signs of deterioration, the police initiated a case against the professor, and he went into hiding. Amidst the police's persecution of his family, he was caught on April 1, but was released on bail. The Taliban-like attack on him by the Islamists, which was most disgusting in its nature, had occurred just when everyone was thinking that the issue had died down. A group of activists belonging to the Social Democratic Party of India, the political wing of the Islamist outfit, Popular Front of India, cut off his right hand and threw it away on the morning of July 4, 2010, when the professor was returning in his car with his mother and sister from Sunday Mass in his native town, Muvattupuzha. The Islamists' message was that nobody should dare to use his/her hand to blaspheme Islam anymore. A case related to this is presently in the trial stage at a special court of the National Investigation Agency court in Kochi.
Making the victim's life more pathetic, the college management dismissed him on September 4 that year, just when he was learning to pardon his tormentors and teaching his reconstructed right hand to do simple things. The management accused him of being so arrogant and adamant that he was not prepared to apologise for the ‘wrong’ he had committed. A pastoral letter was read out against him in all parish churches under the Church's Kothamangalam diocese. Mr Joseph said that while the Islamists' brutal attack had caused him physical pain, the Church and the management had hurt him spiritually. The management refused to revoke the decision even after the intervention of the then Education Minister and the vice-chancellor of MG University to which the college was affiliated. The court's order is unlikely to have any impact on the Islamists who had executed their religious court's decree on the professor, but the people are eager to know whether the exoneration would inspire the Church, which teaches to forgive sinners, to tender an apology and compensate the losses Mr Joseph suffered since his dismissal. So far, there has been no sign of such a move.