Church Attack Probe : Permannur Priest Denies Allegations of Stocking Weapons
Daijiworld Media Network - Mangalore (SP)
MANGALORE, Jul 24 : Deposing before Justice B K Somashekhara Commission of Inquiry that is probing the church attacks in the state on its second day of the hearing in the current sitting, St Sebastian Church Permannur priest Fr Victor D'Souza denied allegations of stocking of weapons, sticks, soda bottles and interlocks in the church premises.
During the cross examination held at the Circuit House here on Thursday July 23, he said, the church did not feel the need to seek police protection, as it was normal for the people to congregate at the church to offer prayers every week. "I saw some youngsters in a Bhajana Mandir located near the church, hurling accusations at the Christians. I had no time to go to the police station to file a complaint against this act," he clarified. While Narayana Reddy, advocate appearing on behalf of the policemen, denied the allegations made by the witness in an affidavit filed by him earlier, the priest stuck by his statements and refuted the lawyer's claim. Adducing his evidence on oath, the priest stated that the allegations of the church crowd snatching away and destroying of a walkie-talkie of police head constable Devi Shetty, beating up a police constable, snatching away of a rifle from a police personnel and breaking it and blocking the vehicular traffic near Tokkottu and disrupting peace, were false. He also held the claims of ringing the church bells for a prolonged period and gathering people in violation of the prohibitory orders as untrue. He also asserted that the statement made by the then superintendent of police Satish Kumar that the allegations levelled against the policemen were false, was wrong.
On the occsion, Narayana Reddy submitted a CD to the Commission. When Ibrahim, advocate for the Christian organizations and witnesses, objected to the delayed submission of the CD, Reddy gave his assent to submit the CD along with a memo and distribute copies of the same to the other advocates. Justice Somashekhara directed Ibrahim to file a written objection to the delayed submission of the CD. During the cross examination, the CD was screened.
In reply to a question raised by government advocate Prasanna Deshpande, Fr Victor said that the district administration had taken stringent measures to avoid recurrence of such incidents, after the church attack incidents. Answering a query made by Bajrang Dal advocate Jagadish Shenava, Fr Victor stood by the allegations he had made in his affidavit and holding them to be true. He refused to accept the inference that he had been motivated by the religious leaders to file the affidavit in two languages, Kannada and Konkani. Shenava had pointed out that there are no allegations against Bajrang Dl in the English affidavit filed by the priest earlier, but in the Kannada affidavit filed later, the allegations had made their appearance.
Justice Somashekhara directed the Bajrang Dal advocate to summon the editor of 'Satyadarshini' literature that allegedly acted as a provocation for the church attacks, before the Commission.
The cross examination of eight witnesses was scheduled for Thursday. But only one could be cross-examined during the day. Justice Somashekhara said, the Commission is considering holding the proceedings through the video-conferencing facility to speed up the inquiry. He expressed happiness about the media attention the Commission's proceedings are getting in the coast.