A bishop threatening the Government with bloodshed, another running a campaign against an MP and now a parish priest facing charge of involvement in arson at a Forest Range office Kerala’s Catholic Church is accused of being unable to control the unlawful or undesirable acts of a section of the clergy in connection with the issue of protection of the Western Ghats.
The Kerala Forest Department has filed a report with the police saying that Fr Saji Mangalath, priest of the Chembukadavu parish under the Thamarassery diocese, had played a leading role in the arson at its Range Office in Thamarassery in Kozhikode district during protests against the Central move to implement certain proposals of the K Kasturirangan panel on Western Ghats.
The FIR registered by the department with the Thamarassery police has also said that Jaison Kizhakkunnel, member of the Kodanchery Grama Panchayat, had participated in the attack on the office along with the priest. A report prepared by the Intelligence wing of the Kerala Police also has reportedly mentioned the involvement of the priest in the incident.
A group of people, said to be members of mafia of sandalwood smugglers and illegal stone quarry operators, had set on fire the Forest Range Office at Thamarassery on November 15 during protests by settler farmers against the Kasturirangan report. The Church had actively participated in the protests.
It was later revealed that the actual intention of the arsonists was to destroy documents at the office relating to land-grabbing, illegal quarry operations, violation of Forest rules and sandalwood smuggling of which several cases were pending in various courts. The Forest Department said 90 percent of the documents kept in the office had been destroyed in the arson.
The report on the priest’s alleged involvement in the arson came out just nine days after the head of his Thamarassery diocese, Bishop Mar Remegiose Inchananiyil, threatened the Government that blood would spill and that a new Maoist outfit would take birth if there were attempts to implement the Kasturirangan committee recommendations.
Addressing participants at a protest fast over the Kasturirangan panel at Kozhikode on November 21, Mar Inchananiyil had said, “A Jallianwala Bagh will occur on the Western Ghats if the panel proposals are implemented… I must say, blood will spill here. We will not allow anyone to protect environment by breaking the backs of the poor farmers.”
On Friday, Mar Inchananiyil rejected the allegation of involvement in arson leveled against Fr Saji. Fr Jaison, spokesman of the Thamarassery diocese, said the report of the investigating police team did not contain Fr Saji’s name. “Fr Saji was nowhere near the Forest Range office. This is part of a bid to weaken the Western Ghats protests being led by the Church,” he said.
Syro-Malabar Church spokesman Fr Paul Thelekkat, however, said that the diocese could be inquiring into the situation in which Fr Saji’s name had appeared in the Forest Department’s report. “We have to find out the truth of the allegation. What I can say is that the Church would never support violence,” he said.
The allegation against Fr Saji has come also in the context of the allegation that a section in the Catholic clergy was becoming intolerant towards the opposition its protests over the Kasturirangan report were facing. Several senior priests had used vile language to attack people’s representatives who were speaking about the need to protect the Western Ghats and its ecology.
Notable among this section was Bishop Mar Mathew Anikkuzhikkattil, head of the Idukki diocese, who had unleashed a pointed attack against local Congress MP PT Thomas. He even went to the extent of indirectly asking the voters of Idukki to defeat Thomas if he contested the Idukki seat once again, inviting sharp criticisms from the Congress and other parties.