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'Religious freedom in danger in India': PTI

T V Parasuram in Washington

The US Commission on International Religious Freedom has recommended that India and Pakistan be closely monitored for "denial of religious freedom to their people".

The commission, which submitted the recommendation to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright five weeks before Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's US visit, alleged the "grave violations" of religious freedom are engaged in or tolerated by the governments of India, Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

The Indian government "appears unable, and possibly unwilling, to control growing violence by self-proclaimed Hindu nationalists targeting religious minorities, particularly Muslims and Christians," it said.

"Priests and missionaries have been murdered, nuns assaulted, churches bombed and converts intimidated in scores of violent incidents over the past few years," it said.

The incidents of violation of religious freedom, said the commission, have also been witnessed in neighbouring Pakistan with a number of people being harassed on religious grounds.

"Large numbers of Sunni Muslims, Ahmadis and Christians have been harassed, detained and imprisoned on account of their religion under laws that prohibit blasphemy and essentially criminalise adherence to the Ahmadi faith."

"In April of this year, the military government in Pakistan abandoned its expressed intent to soften the blasphemy laws," the commission added.

PTI

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