Udupi, Aug 11 (The Hindu): Five witnesses deposed before the Justice B.K. Somasekhara Commission, which is inquiring into the attacks on places of worship in Udupi and other districts in September 2008, at the Deputy Commissioner’s office here on Monday.

K.A. Abraham, pastor of Divine Deliverance Prayer Centre at Shiroor, said that over 25 persons attacked the prayer hall on September 14, 2008. He could identify a few attackers. The attackers were all from outside the district. The name of the lone man injured during the attack was Babu Challadu Rai, he said.

The prayer hall was damaged during the attack. The damage had been estimated at Rs. 4 lakh. His motorcycle too was damaged during the attack. Although there was no police protection to the prayer hall after the attack, he was not afraid of going there now, he said and added that the number of devotees coming to the prayer had been reduced to 20 a day from 35 a day, after the attack.

T.V. Gopinathan of New Life Fellowship Hall, Udupi, said that 14 years of his 22 years’ service as pastor had been in this place. Claiming that he was able to identify a few of those who attacked his prayer hall, he said none of them were from Udupi. The police had reached the spot within 10 minutes of his informing the Superintendent of Police about the attack over telephone, he said.

Six persons had been injured during the attack and they were all taken to the hospital by the police and the other devotees present at that time, he said.

The damage to prayer inflicted by the attackers was estimated at Rs. 1.5 lakh. The Deputy Commissioner had paid Rs. 20,000 as compensation, he said and urged the commission to sanction the entire damage value. Alleging that his prayer had been attacked on September 12, 2004 also, he said a police complaint had been lodged on that attack as well. Madhukar Mudrady, spokesperson of the district unit of Sri Rama Sene, in his deposition before the commission said that the members of the sene were not involved in the September 14, 2008 attack. The country was suffering owing to religious conversions. Although the sene had urged the Government to come out with an anti-conversion law, nothing had happened, Mudrady said. Thimappa Chandrashekhar Nayak and M. Chittaranjan Hegde were the other witnesses who deposed before the commission on Monday.

The inquiry is scheduled to go on till Wednesday.

Later, justice B.K. Somasekhara told presspersons that the commission would submit an interim report to the Government shortly. The commission would complete its task at the earliest, he added.