Moily for CBI probe into Karnataka church attacks

BANGALORE - Union Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily Saturday said the judicial panel, which absolved the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party and Hindu groups of attacks on churches in Karnataka, had suppressed the truth.

“Only a probe by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) will bring out the truth,” he told reporters here a day after the justice B.S. Somashekara enquiry commission said the BJP, its government and Sangh Parivar had no hand in the series of attacks on churches in the state in 2008.

A CBI probe was necessary because “truth should not be suppressed”, Moily said.

He demanded that the B.S. Yeddyurappa-led state government should immediately seek a CBI probe into the attacks that took place in several districts, allegedly because of conversion activity by some Christian groups and circulation of literature “insulting” Hindu gods.

“Merely because a commission has given its report, truth cannot be suppressed. It should be brought out. The state government should be sincere in these matters,” Moily asserted.

The interim report of the Somashekara commission, given in February last year, had named Bajrang Dal as one of the groups behind the attacks. But there was no mention of it in the final report, the law minister noted.

“Both interim and final report of any panel should read together,” Moily said.

The commission said in its final report that “there is no basis to the apprehension of Christian petitioners that the politicians, the BJP, mainstream Sangh Parivar and the state government directly or indirectly, are involved in the attacks.”

It said: “The true Hindus have no role to play in any attack directly or indirectly, but the attacks are indulged in by misguided fundamentalist miscreants of defined or undefined groups or organisations.”

The panel also absolved the police of collusion.

However, in its report of February 2010 the panel had said that “strong impression is created that the members belonging to Bajarang Dal, Sri Rama Sene, and the VHP (Vishwa Hindu Parishad) etc. are mainly responsible for attacking churches or places of worship, mainly in Mangalore and South Canara (Dakshina Kannada) districts spreading to other districts and other parts of the state.”

While the BJP has welcomed the panel’s conclusions, the Congress and the Janata Dal-Secular have attacked it saying ‘the government has got what it wanted.”

The Chrisitian community leaders have also expressed anguish over the panel’s failure to name the groups behind the attacks.

The minority wing of the JDS Saturday staged a demonstration in Bangalore against the report and demanded that the government should not accept it.