Thousands of Sarna followers on Sunday were not allowed to reach to the controversial statue of Virgin Mary in her tribal avatar at the Roman Catholic Church of Singpur village of Dhurwa followed by the prohibitory orders under Section-144 put by the administration on Saturday. Thousands of Sarna followers had gathered on Sunday to march towards the Church to replace the saree-cladded statue of Mother Mary with the original one.
“The administration stopped us on the way and we returned and held a meeting where some resolutions were passed in the regard. We took a pledge that the statue will be removed from the church at any cost after organizing a mega rally on December 25 at Morhabadi,” said their leader Bandhan Tigga. According to Tigga, the Christian missionaries are trying to mislead the poor and innocent tribals of the State by creating a sense of confusion in their minds that Mother Mary and Sarna Maa are same.
This is a conspiracy by missionaries in order to promote conversion in the guise Sarna Maa. “Though we are peace loving people, we did not want to be involved in any kind of clash with the police, but if they will not remove the statue, we will protest on the lines of Sikhs fought to save their religion. A special group of fighters will be formed which will go and remove the statue even at the cost of their lives,” said Tigga.
Suspecting clash during the march of Sarna ideologues, the administration had imposed prohibitory orders under section 144 in the area for Sunday. Nothing untoward as expected was however, witnessed during the protest. “As the march was peaceful and they did not create any nuisance, and held their meeting away, there was no point disturbing them,” said SDO Ameet Kumar.
Tigga claimed that the Christian missionaries will not be able to succeed in their intention to finishing Sarna religion from the state. A dark-skinned statue of Mother Mary in a red-bordered saree like tribal women of Jharkhand was unveiled by Cardinal Telesphor P Toppo on May 26 at Singpur Church. Despite being repeatedly warned by us to remove the statue or change its attire, they refused to do so. lastly, we decided to bring down the statue to in order to save our religion, said Tigga.