YWAM centre attacked in Jabalpur
From our correspondent
Youth
With a Mission (YWAM) centre in Jabalpur, Madhya
Pradesh was ransacked and vandalised by Bajrang Dal activists on 17 March
2006. The attackers beat up resident students of the centre and misbehaved with
the girl students. As the police arrived on the scene, the attackers fled but
the police managed to get hold of one of them.
YWAM
Central India Director Mukesh Jacob said, "I
first got a call around 9 pm from the centre saying four people from the
Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) had come for an enquiry. As I spoke to
them over the phone, they said they were Bajrang Dal activists and wanted to know what we were doing at our
centre. They also wanted to interview some of the students."
Jacob
said he was not in town and asked them to come the following morning.
“Immediately they cut off the phone. When I called up the centre again, I could
hear the attackers forcing our staff not to pick up the phone. This time also
the attackers cut off the phone. I called in the police for help," he
said.
Meanwhile
around 15 more Bajrang Dal
activists barged into the centre. They started to ransack the place and beat up
the students. They also misbehaved with the girl students hitting them on their
private parts. The attackers also broke the furniture, damaged the computer,
broke the television set and shattered the window panes. They used foul
language and burned copies of the Bible.
While
they were still vandalising the place, the police
arrived. Although most of the attackers managed to escape, the police were able
to catch one of them, who was fully drunk. "Even after the police arrived,
the attackers were freely roaming in the vicinity and the police were not
arresting them. It was only when we questioned the police, they caught some
more attackers and took them to police station," Jacob said.
Once
in the police station, the police tried to delay filing an FIR. “They even
rejected my application saying I was not
present at the time of the attack. Finally one of the girls Ruth Mangalam from the centre filed an FIR,” he said.
The
attackers were allegedly led by one Yogesh Agarwal. The police arrested him and four others on the
charge of ransacking the centre and attacking the couple. The police also made
out a case against Mukesh Jacob and his wife Sarah
under Section 4 of the Freedom of Religion Act and collected some Christian
literature from the centre to prove that they are involved in religious
conversions.
The
press also proved to be biased. Nai Dunia, a prominent Hindi newspaper, even went to the extent
of quoting Superintendent of Police Srinivas Rao saying, "The couple are involved in conversion
activities."
Jabalpur has
seen a lot of attacks against the Christian community in the recent past. Early
this year on Republic Day three Christian priests from the Church of Nazarene
were arrested from a hotel in Jabalpur on a complaint
filed by Hindu activists that they were involved in converting tribals.
Hindu
activists were also involved in desecrating Christian shrines in the city and
attacking a number of Christian pastors, including Pastor Munnu
Kujur and Pastor Rao.