Mangalore Church Attacks: Three Years On, They Still Wait for Justice

Florine Roche
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore
 
Mangalore, Sep 14: In January this year Justice B K Somshekar who was appointed by the state government to look into the unfortunate incidents of attack on Christian places of worship in 2008, submitted his final report to the government. The report gave a clean chit to the then Yeddyurappa government under whose tenure the attack occurred and many felt the commission had made a U-turn from its own earlier interim report which had indicted the government for its lapses or for its abetment. It is almost nine months now and the state government has neither accepted nor rejected the report. No one knows what would be the outcome of the report which was carried out by spending crores of tax payer’s money.

It is going to be three years since the unfortunate incidents of September 14, in which churches and other places of worships of Christians were attacked by hooligans who wanted to spread hatred and mayhem. These anti-social elements succeeded in their mission and what we witnessed was a bloody lathi charge and attacks involving the police and the Catholic youth. Even after 3 years nearly 338 Catholic youth are facing cases against them in connection with the church attacks and the events that followed. Despite assurances by the former Chief Minister Yeddyurappa, present Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda, Home Minister R Ashok and other ministers and bureaucrats who matter in the government, nothing concrete could be done so far. Though everyone has given solemn assurances that the cases against these youth will be withdrawn soon, it looks like it is going to be a long wait, if one has to go by these promises.

As we all know, the Somshekar Commission report received a mixed reaction from different sections of the society. While the Catholic groups condemned the report outright for going against its own interim report and for giving a clean chit to the government and other organizations believed to have been involved, Catholic organizations and clergy criticized Justice Somshekar for his partisan and biased approach to the incidents of attack and rejected the report outright. Needless to say, the government was in a piquant situation and tried to burke it to avoid any further embarrassment. In fact many Catholics individually and through various organizations and even many Bishops of the state tried to exert pressure on the government asking it to withdraw the cases booked against the 338 youngsters.

Soon after the Somshekar report was submitted to the government, eighteen bishops from several churches of the state took out a protest march in Bangalore demanding rejection of the findings of Justice Somashekara Commission report. Led by Archbishop of Bangalore Bernard Moras they marched from Mahatma Gandhi statue to the state Secretariat and presented a memorandum to Home Minister R Ashok on the charter of demands regarding the violence that followed in Mangalore after the attacks on places of worship. R Ashok had promised that the government would take appropriate steps to withdraw the cases. But his promise still remains only a promise. Archbishop Moras had said during the agitation that the agitation to reject the Somashekara Commission report will continue till the demand is met.

In August this year Christian leaders led by Ronald Colaco, Chairman of IFKCA met the new Chief Minister Sadananda Gowda in the presence of Higher Education Minister V S Acharya. The Chief Minister has assured that he would ensure taking back the cases on priority basis through cabinet approval. But so far their efforts have not yielded minimal results. It is believed that the files pertaining to the cases have been dispatched from the office of the Mangalore city Police Commissioner in April this year and are under review at the office of the additional DGP – Law and Order. Despite all out efforts by the clergy and laity and assurances from the powers that be, there are no visible results for the youth against whom cases are registered.

Naturally, voices of discontent and murmur are being heard from this lot who are bearing the brunt of their action which was done spontaneously to safeguard their places of worship. While doing do they never believed they would be caught in a vicious circle of law from which it would require herculean efforts to come out as is being proved now. Some of these youth are crestfallen as the cases continue to pay havoc with their lives and career. It is believed that lack of support on the part of some parishes for these unfortunate people arising out of ego clashes, has further compounded the problem. Some of them are forced to spend from their own pockets to attend court cases making way for disappointment and revulsion and is surely opprobrium to the entire community. The clash of ego and the efforts to show one-upmanship has definitely exposed the chinks in our armor and has done more harm than good. Needless to say some of these youth who are caught in these court cases that initially went through all this with utter stoicism are now confused, depressed and have lost the zest of life having gone through hell in the past three years.

It is not enough to mouth platitudes or do lip service for these youngsters just for the sake of doing it. What is needed is genuine and concerted efforts of all concerned which should continue in this direction till the goal is achieved. That should be the first and top most priority as for now. Or else we will be doing a great disservice to these unfortunate people and their sacrifice will come to a naught.