(July 01, 2010) Church people in central India have condemned apparent harassment
of Christian students by Hindu hardliners. Some 40 students from Orissa state were
returning to their school in Indore on June 28 after summer vacation when members
of the Dharam Rakshak Samiti (religion protection council) stopped their bus on the
road, said Peter Masih and Abhijeet Masih, who were accompanying the children. They
questioned the children, all of them Christians aged five to 12, for three hours and
took them to a police station. The Hindus wanted the police to register a case of
attempted forcible religious conversion of the children. However, this was not done
as the accusers failed to produce any evidence, a senior police official said. The
police then allowed the children to proceed to their hostel. Madhya Pradesh state,
ruled by the pro-Hindu Bharatiya Janata Party, has a law that prohibits religious
conversion without the state’s knowledge. The children, some 20 of them from Kandhamal
district in Orissa, which witnessed anti-Christian riots in 2008, have been students
of a private school in Indore for the past year. A Protestant NGO, Youth with a Mission,
supports their education and accommodation. Christian leaders have condemned the
incident. “It is shocking that poor children were needlessly harassed for such a
long time,” said Indore diocesan spokesperson Father Cherian Pulickal. He said he
wanted the administration to act on the incident.