Catholic union seeks fair probe into Modi Punjab fiasco

By Matters India Reporter

New Delhi, Jan 8, 2022: The All India Catholic Union, the largest laity group in the country, has expressed concern over the aborted visit of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Punjab.

“The Catholic Union prays, as does every Indian citizen, for the long life of Narendra Modi and all others put in high offices of governance in India,” John Dayal, spokesperson of the union, told Matters India January 8.

The federal Home Ministry on January 6 set up a three-member committee to study the sequence of events that unfolded during the prime minister’s January 5 visit to Ferozepur, a town in Punjab.

“We believe that only a fair enquiry will find out the many unexplained issues of the aborted visit of BJP chief campaigner, who is also the prime minister of India guarded as well as any head of government in the world. As common observers, it is our desire that truth will out so that, above all, the security involving such high office as that of the prime minister, further improved,” Dayal says.

He says the only lawful means of regime change is through the ballot box. “The several elections that are forthcoming, and the general elections which are but two years away, will offer us an opportunity if we want to live in a polarizing environment where women, youth, Adivasis, Dalit and religious minorities feel threatened by stage impunity and aggression by non-state actors, or democratic persons will be chosen to office.”

The union also expressed happiness that the government has renewed the FCRA registration of the Missionaries of Charity.

“We demand that the FCRA of all other NGOs including of the Christian community be restored forthwith so that service to the needy is not interrupted. The NGOs reach where the government does, not, or does not want to go,” the union spokesperson asserts.

“We also express our deep anguish at the manner in which the MC sisters of Kanpur have been evicted from their ashram building, and elsewhere how orphans in one of the mission institutions are sought to be made orphan once again by government trying to remove to a public institution.”