A current affidavit filed by the Centre stated the petitions had been “exaggerated”. Image used for consultant objective solely.
| Photo Credit: S. Subramanium
Petitioners have alleged in the Supreme Court that “attacks” on Christians and registration of instances towards members of the spiritual minority “coincide” with the approaching of anti-conversion laws in a number of States.
Their petitions have alleged that assaults towards Christians noticed an “exponential rise” put up 2022. They had listed alleged incidents of violence towards Christians in Bihar, Haryana, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh.
Also Read: Statistics on assaults on Christian group fallacious: Centre to Supreme Court
A current affidavit filed by the Centre stated the petitions had been “exaggerated”. It stated the “attacks”, as claimed by the petitioners, had been really “internal fights between neighbours of which one of them would be a Christian”.
Rejoinder to affidavit
But the petitioners, represented by senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, in their rejoinder to the federal government affidavit, stated the affidavit of the Centre “discloses” the “political identity” of the folks, whose complaints towards the Christian group members, are registered by the police as FIRs.
“In over 90% of the incidents, a prayer meeting would be taking place in a private residence or a church premises. As if on cue, a large group of persons from a well-known communal organisation force entry into the premises, disrupt the prayer meeting, assault the congregation, including women, destroy property, drag the pastor and others to the police station, register FIRs against the victim community and in many cases put the pastor in jail. In many instances the assailants are accompanied by the local police and this gives the assailants’ confidence that they can resort to violence,” the rejoinder alleged.
The petitioners stated the “assaults were not spontaneous and unconnected but rather part of the overall well-planned strategy”.
They claimed that there was not a single occasion of an assailant being booked by the police. “In a few cases these assailants were picked up by the police and released,” their rejoinder stated.
