Bhopal: Christians on Tuesday staged a peaceful demonstration to protest against increasing harassment of community members in state at Ambedkar Park. Nuns, pastors and other community members are harassed on false accusation of religious conversion, they said.
Members of all denominations participated in the sit-in, informed Fr Maria Stephen, PRO of Bhopal Catholic Archdiocese.
Addressing the gathering, Fr Stephen said, “We have gathered here not to do any evil to any individual, government or organisation, but to demand the rights granted to every individuals in the constitution.”
“Religious freedom is a fundamental right of everyone. Build bridges with love and not walls of hatred,” he said.
Indira Iyengar, Fr Godwin, Fr Florence, Pastor Vijay Nathaniel, Pastor CP Singh, Fr Jonedius and many others talked about positive attitude towards the missionaries as they are engaged in the service of society.
Arch Bishop Leo Cornelio said, in all missionary institutions, people of all castes, religions are employed and majority of them are from other religions. Missionary organisations work on secular thinking and respect all religions. But some fundamentalists always try to defame Christian institutions and attempt to give communal colours to the programmes organised in these institutions, Cornelio said.
Missionaries are working in rural and urban areas, regardless of their facilities and they are working as a voice of the voiceless, he added.
On June 13 at Satna railway station a nun and four other women were forced to alight from a train on a fake complaint of a fundamentalist organisation.
Minorities do not get the benefit of various schemes and their paperwork is so long that the minority community does not get full advantage of government schemes, the speakers said.
They demanded the government that benefit of these schemes is made available to members of minority community for their uplift. All Christians, have full faith in the Constitution and laws of the country. At the same time we request the government not to be carried away by the misrepresentation of fundamentalists, regardless of their religion, and they should not harass members of any religion, the leaders said.
