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President forwards letters of concern over Christian attacks to Centre

President K R Narayanan is understood to have written two letters to the Centre expressing concern over the recent incidents in BJP-ruled Gujarat.

This was hinted at by former prime minister H D Deve Gowda and senior Janata Dal leader Ram Vilas Paswan who called on the President at the Rashtrapati Bhavan to lodge a strong protest against attacks on Christians in south Gujarat.

Leaders of various political parties cutting across religious lines and several organisations have submitted a number of memorandums to Narayanan in the recent past, seeking his intervention in the sordid state of affairs in Gujarat where the minority community is under attack by some fundamentalist groups, they said.

They said the President told them that he has written two letters to the central government after receiving a series of memorandums, ''but we don't know the contents of the communications,'' they added.

According to the two Janata Dal leaders, the President appeared to be concerned over the happenings in Gujarat which has projected India in a bad light.

Paswan said he had urged the President to convey the Janata Dal sentiments to the government with his ''concern''.

The Janata Dal delegation, led by Deve Gowda, demanded the dismissal of the Gujarat government which has failed to protect the minorities.

Other members of the delegation were S Jaipal Reddy, Madhu Dandavate, Srikant Jena, Devendra Yadav, Promila Dandvate, Babu Kaldadte and Ranjan Yadav.

However, the Rashtrapati Bhavan spokesman clarified that the communications sent by the President to the Centre was a forwarding letter to the memorandums submitted by various political parties.

The JD delegation apprised the President of the atrocities committed on the Christian minorities in Gujarat by various organisations of the Sangh Parivar.

Deve Gowda and Paswan gave a detailed account of the first hand information collected by them during their extensive tour of the trouble-torn districts of Gujarat.

Demanding imposition of central rule in Gujarat in the wake of the ''state government's utter failure to protect minorities there'', Deve Gowda said that at least 90 churches were demolished by funadmentalist organisations during their targeted attacks on holy places.

Deve Gowda said that soon after the Babri Masjid demolition, three state governments -- Himachal Pradesh , Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan -- were dismissed and the court later justified the dismissal saying that they had collaborated in the demolition and failed to protect the minorities and the secular fabric against their constitutional pledge to do so.

The JD leaders said trouble-makers were confident that they would go scot-free as the party patronising them was in power. ''It is a clear case of collaboration,'' the Dal leaders said and regretted that the prime minister and the home minister both have expressed their displeasure on the incidents but their government has not yet sent a warning to the Keshubhai government in Gujarat under Article 355, asking it why action should not be taken against it for its failure to maintain law and order.

Deve Gowda alleged that when attacks were in full swing, the prime minister, instead of visiting troubled spots, went on a holiday in Andaman and Nicobar Islands and Communications Minister Pramod Mahajan, in a reported statement, attacked the minority community against conversions, thus emboldening the miscreants.

Both Deve Gowda and Paswan said the Gujarat incidents were not a mere case of law and order and could not be dismissed as a state subject as it involves attacks on a religion.

Deve Gowda and Paswan had undertaken an extensive tour of the Dangs and Bulsar districts where the minority institutions were the target of attacks during the past few months.

UNI

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