Even as the war of words between Goa’s Roman Catholic Church and the BJP has intensified, the Congress on Friday demanded a CBI probe into desecration series, in which nearly one hundred crosses, graves and a few icons of Hindu worship were also damaged.
State Congress president Shantaram Naik told at a Press conference at the party’s headquarters in Panaji that the State police were “under pressure” and their investigation into the mass desecrations are up to scratch.
“The Congress will write to the Union Home Affairs Ministry demanding a Central Bureau of Investigation probe into the desecration cases,” Naik said, while also requesting Goa Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar to formally request the MHA to initiate a CBI probe.
The Congress’ demand for a CBI probe comes at a time when the influential Roman Catholic Church in Goa, which is the religious and spiritual guide to over 25 per cent of the State populatio has been stepping up heat on the BJP-led coalition Government, accusing it of polarising the social fabric in the State.
A fact-finding committee co-chaired by the Council for Social Justice and Peace, a social wing of the Church in Goa, has picked holes in the police investigation in the mass desecrations, which has arrested two persons, both of whom are allegedly not of sound mind, according to the investigators.
The fact-finding report calls the police probe a sham and accuses the BJP-led coalition government of being anti minority.
Another cause for the rumblings between the Church and the BJP is an article published in a magazine published from the Goa Arch Bishop's house, which likens BJP-led government's rule in Goa and India to Nazi-led Germany.
"In 2012, everyone thought in terms of having a corruption-free Goa; this thinking continued till 2014, but from then and increasingly everyday what we are witnessing in India is nothing but a constitutional holocaust. Corruption is very bad, communalism is worse, but Nazism is worse than both," the controversial article said.
“Anybody who read William Shirer's 'The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich' or Allan Bullocks”. A study of tyranny' or Hitler's own 'Mein Kampf' will find an extraordinary identity between the growth and rampage, of Nazism in Germany in 1933 onwards and India in 2014," it further said.
Both Chief Minister Manohar Parrikar as well as BJP spokesperson and MlA Nilesh Cabral have on two occasions taken head-on the charges levelled by the Church magazine as well as the fact-finding report.
"All methods were tried, legal, media, social media and bad publicity. Even to the extent that two days before the elections, some organisation released a false fact-finding report. I am calling it false, because you will realise in the coming days, because government goes by the police investigation..." Parrikar told reporters soon after winning the Panaji by-poll earlier this week. Both the fact-finding report and the Church magazine were released on the eve of the August 23 by-poll.
Cabral has also questioned the locus-standi of the fact-finding committee.
"Who is the fact-finding committee and who gave authority to the fact-finding mission. The police are already doing a good job. It was wrong trying to polarise the votes before the elections," Cabral said.
Goa Forward, a ruling ally party in the state, has also accused the Church in Goa of being selective in its picking of issues and its spokesperson Trajano D'Mello said on Friday that organisations linked to the Church were "trying to add fuel to the fire" and that the consequences would be negative for the Catholic community in the State.