A Catholic church has been the victim of an attack in the Indian state of Punjab, in the north of the country. A statue of the Virgin Mary was damaged and a priest's vehicle was burned in Patti.
According to Father Thomas Poochalil, parish priest, the attack occurred in the early hours of August 31, 2022, shortly after midnight in the compound of the Catholic Church of the Child Jesus, in the diocese of Jalandhar, northern Punjab state.
An unidentified mob hit the Pietà statue in front of the church in Punjab's Tarn Taran district and set fire to a car in the complex. They chanted while chanting slogans like "we are Khalistani". The Khalistan movement is a Sikh separatist movement that seeks to create a homeland for Sikhs by establishing a sovereign state, called "Khalistan" in the Punjab region.
"The police have been informed and the investigation is ongoing. We ask for support and prayers in this time of pain for all of us who will remain in the complex," said Father Poochalil.
"We ask for the intercession of our protector, Our Lady Queen of Peace, so that peace and tranquility prevail and as soon as possible the guilty are brought to justice," he adds.
In a separate incident, statues in one of the oldest churches in the Garo Hills District of the Northeast State of Meghalaya were vandalized.
RVA News reporter says statues of Jesus, Mother Mary, and St. Joseph, as well as the statue of a baby Jesus, were desecrated.
The attackers also tried to damage the holy crucifix placed on the upper portion of the church wall above the altar where the Mass is celebrated, but ended up destroying the leg of the image.
As per reports, the incident took place on the night of August 22, though it was not reported until the evening of August 25, a day after the new superintendent of police, Shailendra Bamaniya, took charge.
The miscreant did not loot any money or valuables from the church, nor take away any property, but damaged all the holy statues of the church.
Besides, in recent years, there have been different episodes of violence against churches and ecclesiastical personnel, such as priests, nuns, pastors, and Christians from different churches in various states of India.
However, the federal government denies that there is specific violence against Christians.
The United Christian Forum (UCF), a think tank made up of Christians of various denominations, documented 127 cases of violence against Christians in the first 103 days of 2022 in India, while in 2021, 486 cases of attacks were documented.
In India, 2.3% of the approximately 1.4 billion population are Christians. - with reports from Agenzia Fides and RVA Zo
Radio Veritas Asia (RVA), a media platform of the Catholic Church, aims to share Christ. RVA started in 1969 as a continental Catholic radio station to serve Asian countries in their respective local language, thus earning the tag “the Voice of Asian Christianity.” Responding to the emerging context, RVA embraced media platforms to connect with the global Asian audience via its 21 language websites and various social media platforms.
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