Ban sectarian groups: Commission Report

(February 06, 2010) Anti-religious communal organizations should be banned and their assets seized, a commission investigating Christian violence in Karnataka has recommended. The southern Indian state has witnessed at least 24 attacks on Church institutions and Christians in 2008. The Justice B. K. Somasekhara Commission submitted its 500-page interim report to the state government this week and called for a ban on organizations that preach or act against any religion. The report also recommended a ban on materials using abusive or insulting expressions against religions. It also suggested a ban on films and television programmes that offend religious sentiments. The report pointed to the Hindu radical groups to have carried out the attacks against the Christians and churches. “As a whole, the allegations of attacks on several churches … are true and sometimes believably probable,” it said. The report, however, was not without criticism of Christians, saying there were suspicions that statements maligning the Hindu religion might have prompted the attacks. The probe also said that conversions to Christianity by inducements could have been a factor. Panavelil Ninan Benjamin, a member of the Minority Commission in Karnataka, dismissed the report as a collection of “wishy-washy impressions” the judge gathered from people and documents it examined. “The findings are not conclusive. The commission doesn’t seem to have pinpointed the culprits behind the violence,” he said. The probe commission wants the government to compensate Christians for damage to their property and injury “within one month from the submission of the final report.