Mathai said Patil told him that he has asked Konkan range Inspector General K.K. Pathak to submit a detailed report within eight days and that police would conduct an inquiry “on a priority basis.”

Local police denied that they take no action to defend the Christians. District Head Constable Y.T. Karale of Wada police station, Thane district, told Compass that officers have their hands full with “frequent skirmishes” between villagers and Christians.

“When the warring parties are brought to the police station, we try to arrange some settlement between them,” Karale said. “To pacify the villagers, we often make the Christians sign a bond before an executive magistrate for keeping the peace and good behavior, only as a preventive security measure against further offenses.”

Authorities thus blame Christians for provoking the Hindus by practicing their faith, Christian leaders said.

“I’m afraid that the police are proving to be unfair and ineffective,” Mathai said. “I was also told that the local police in another village had urged the tribals not to attend prayer meetings, as that may lead to further attacks.”

Widespread Criminality

The belt of tribal people in Thane district “is in the grip of the extremists groups who intimidate and terrify the poor tribals,” Mathai told Compass.

Hindu extremists attacked Christians in Vikramgarh last month; last week they attacked them in Manor and Mokhada, he said. Vivian Correia of the state Minorities Commission told Compass that last month pastor Vasudev Deshmukh of Maharashtra Village Ministries, in Thane district’s Mokhada village, was threatened by local villagers accompanied by Hindu extremists from the VKP and Bajrang Dal.

“They threatened to cut the water and electric supply to the pastor’s house church if he continued services there,” Correia said.  “They made false accusations of luring poor Hindu tribals to convert.”

Pastor Deshmukh told Compass that he was unable to hold the worship service last Sunday (November 4) as a group of extremists and villagers hovered nearby, poised to attack.

“There were women also in the group who had chile powder in their hands to throw in the eyes of any one who came to service,” Pastor Deshmukh said. “In any case, none of the believers came for Sunday worship, as they were terrified of being assaulted by the extremists.”

On October 23, Hindu extremists beat pastor Victor Periera of Vikramgarh (see Compass Direct News, “India Briefs,” November 6); after a few days, police slapped notices on 11 of the people attending the prayer meeting for “disrupting peace in the area,” said Mathai.

After the attack on Pastor Pereira, Mathai said, worship services were cancelled the following two Sundays (October 28 and November 4).

Correia said attacks on Christians also took place last Friday (November 2) on prayer services in private homes in Manor and Mokhada villages.

“These extremists barged into the homes of the believers and disrupted the prayers and chased the believers away,” Correia said. “In most of these cases, tribal Christians are targeted and beaten for attending community prayer meetings, while the police mostly choose to be spectators.”

Mathai, for his part, said he is at a loss to explain how the area became an extremist hotbed. The tribal belt of Thane district is not close to the Gujarat state border – “the Hindutva [Hindu nationalism] laboratory” from which many extremist elements originate, he said.

Copyright 2007 Compass Direct News