Source:  www.assistnews.net

Date:  2007-12-29

By James Varghese
Special to ASSIST News Service

PATNA, INDIA (ANS) -- According to the news reported by the website www.ucanews.com, Buddhist, Christian and Hindu leaders in Bihar state have condemned four young Hindu men for repeatedly troubling a Protestant church and disrupting its Christmas service.

The incident occurred at the century-old Union Church, managed by the Church of North India (CNI) in Gaya, 1,030 kilometers east of Delhi.

Apparently inebriated, the four men began their harassment on Dec. 24, when they roughed up volunteers who were decorating the church. They snatched and punctured balloons and other decorations, and trampled them.

The intruders also threatened to kill the pastor if Christmas celebrations were not stopped and the church closed, Pastor Nicholas Purty told UCA News. They manhandled him and left after "half an hour of rampage," the 67-year-old pastor said.

Following the incident, the pastor arranged for police protection. But the miscreants "stealthily entered the church" around 10 p.m. that night, Christmas Eve. After beating up a volunteer, they escaped without the police noticing them.

The same four sneaked in for a third time around 11 a.m. on Dec. 25, during the Christmas service. They made "vulgar gestures and remarks" in front of some 700 guests, most of them Hindus, and about 300 Church members, Pastor Purty said. Local Hindus here often come to church services during major Church feasts.

The miscreants used their mobile phones to take photographs of the choir girls, then overturned tables, chairs and musical instruments. "They also began desecrating the sacred altar. One of them climbed over the altar and began dancing, and made shameless gestures. The other three danced around the altar as if they were dancing in a pub," recalled the shocked pastor.

He said he hastily removed sacred materials from the altar and announced "the suspension" of the service to protest the acts of desecration. As the people began to protest and some Christian youths tried to overpower the four, they ran away "spewing the worst of abuses against Christians."

Soon top officials rushed to the church and assured security, the pastor said, adding that the Christmas service resumed around noon.

Kalyan Horo, the attacked tribal Christian volunteer, identified all four troublemakers as local Hindus. Police have arrested one of them and were searching for the other three, he said.

Among the leaders from local religious communities who condemned the incident was Bhante Priyapal. The Buddhist monk said the incidents "shocked" him because "Gaya and Bodh Gaya have been cradles of interreligious coexistence for more than two-and-a-half millennia."

Gaya town is the administrative center of the district of the same name, which covers Bodh Gaya. According to tradition, Buddha attained enlightenment some 2,500 years ago in Bodh Gaya, about 15 kilometers from Gaya.

Jesuit Brother Joseph Vetticatt told UCA News that leaders of other religions had "expressed their solidarity" with the Christians in the area. He estimated the Christian community to comprise 1,200 Catholics, Baptists and CNI members.

Kameshwar Pathak, a Hindu leader and social worker, told UCA News on Dec. 27 that the miscreants had damaged the "glory of Gaya," which is also a Hindu pilgrimage site. Hindus and Buddhists in the area have lived peacefully with Muslims for the past 800 years and Christians for the past 200 years, he noted.

The four young men have "sinned against our culture and heritage," and they deserve the harshest social and legal punishment, Pathak said, suggesting their "excommunication" from Hindu society.