By Matters India Reporter
Ponkunnam: India’s Home Minister Amit Shah has assured Christians that he would take action against attackers of Catholic nuns who were traveling on a train in Uttar Pradesh.
The minister was responding to an appeal from Member of Parliament Alphons Kannanthanam at a public function in Kerala on March 24.
Shah was campaigning for his Bharatiya Janata Party in the southern Indian state that goes to poll on April 6 to elect its legislative assembly. Shah was at Ponkunnam, a major town in Kanjirappally constituency where Kannanthanam is the BJP candidate.
Kannanthanam’s appeal urged the federal home minister to take immediate action against those March 19 heckled and harassed two members of the Sacred Heart congregation and two students.
The four were traveling from Delhi to Rourkela in Odisha when a group of alleged Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (All India Students’ Council) accused them of indulging in religious conversion. With the help of railway police, the BJP’s student wing activists forced the nuns and the students to alight at Jhansi, a town in Uttar Pradesh state.
The incident triggered nationwide outrage especially after the video clips of the heckling went viral on social media platforms.
Kannanthanam’s appeal to Shah said, “I am deeply pained to bring to your kind notice the incident of some Reverend Sisters from the Christian Community being ill-treated while travelling in a train from Delhi to Orissa, at Jhansi in in Uttar Pradesh on the 19th of March. Four them were de-boarded and taken to a Police Station. One of them incidentally is from Kerala.”
Kannanthanam recalled that Prime Minister Narendra Modi has stated “categorically on various occasions that his administration is for everybody. In various meetings with the Christian community, he has assured equality for all, as enshrined in the Constitution.”
The politician from Kerala reminded Shah that “You too have expressed your view on this matter that such criminal activities will not be tolerated in our country.”
In his response, Shah publicly promised strict action on the nuns’ attackers. He assured that Uttar Pradesh is ruled by BJP and strict action would be taken on the culprits. He also promised that the people of Kerala need not worry about the safety of their people outside the state.
Earlier in the day, Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan sought Shah’s intervention in the incident
In a letter to Shah on March 24, Vijayan demanded strict action “on all groups and individuals who disrupt and impair the freedom of individual rights guaranteed by the Constitution”.
“You would agree with me that such incidents tarnish the nation and its ancient tradition of religious tolerance and practice. Such incidents require utmost condemnation by the Union Government,” Vijayan wrote.
In the letter, Vijayan has also drawn Shah’s attention to the fact that the group of four women who were “harassed and intimidated by around 150 Bajrang Dal activists”, were removed from the train in Jhansi at night without the presence of a woman police official.