Two churches attacked in India’s Karnataka state

(January 26, 2010) The governor of the southern Indian state of Karnataka on Tuesday sought stringent action against those who attacked two Catholic churches in Karwar and Mysore dioceses on Monday. "It is the constitutional duty of every government to deal firmly with the forces which tend to disturb communal peace and harmony," Governor Hans Raj Bhardwaj said in his Republic Day address to the state. The first attack occurred in the village of Thernamakki in the diocese of Karwar, where unidentified people vandalised the grotto of the local church, and broke its windows. The second incident took place in Inkal, a village in Mysore diocese, where someone desecrated the statue of the Virgin located in the compound attached to the Holy Family Parish Church. Governor Bhardwaj stressed that the nation's founding fathers had a vision to build a secular, united democratic society in which people of all faiths and religions enjoyed their basic freedom and right to practise their religion. Earlier on Friday members of the Sri Rama Sene, a rightwing Hindu party, tried to desecrate the cross of a church in Mundalli in Karwar diocese, but were chased away by members of the congregation. Police arrested eight of them the next day. Recently, a local Hindu leader made threats against Christian institutions in retaliation for the mistreatment of Indians in Australia.