‘My Brother Was Beaten to Death on May 3. I Blame CM Biren Singh for the Manipur Violence’
Lamlamoi Gangte, who shared a neighbourhood with MC Mary Kom's brother and witnessed harrowing sights at Imphal on May 3, tells PM Modi, 'Like you, I am also Indian.' Moltheitampa (Churachandpur): Telling one’s own story is never easy. Particularly when you are living the trauma. So much has happened over the last few days with me and my family that if you were to ask me today’s date, I wouldn’t be able to remember it. So let me begin with what you would remember. You would remember celebrated boxer from Manipur, Mary Kom, pleading with the Prime Minister, the Union home minister and the Union defence minister on Twitter, on the morning of May 4, to save her state. She had tweeted, “My state is burning.” A night before, her brother Hupreng’s house was nearly burned down by a mob in the Games Village area of Imphal city. Her tears in the video, where she spoke of what was unfolding in her state were real. The danger for life and property to the tribals residing in the capital city had reached her brother’s door too. Hupreng has been my neighbour. The armed mob, hunting for property owned by Kuki-Zomi people in our colony situated in
Rise in attacks on Christians coincides with enactment of anti-conversion laws, petitioners tell SC
The petitioners also alleged that groups linked to the Union government are behind the communal attacks. The attacks on members of the Christian community increased after 2021 and they coincide with the enactments of anti-conversion laws in several states, petitioners told the the Supreme Court on Tuesday, Live Law reported. Anti-conversion laws have been enacted by BJP governments in nine states including Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat, Uttarakhand, Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Jharkhand, Karnataka and Himachal Pradesh. The laws require prior permission for religious conversions for marriage. The states have either passed new anti-conversion laws or updated existing ones after 2017. The new versions of the laws put in place stricter punishments and newer grounds for restricting conversions, such as conversion “by marriage” – where a person who adopts another faith to enter into a marriage would be deemed to have been forcibly converted. The Supreme Court is hearing pleas filed by Bengaluru Archbishop Peter Machado, the National Solidarity Forum and the Evangelical Fellowship of India alleging an increase in attacks on Christians in India. The Centre has maintained there is no merit in the pleas. “It is a recent trend that certain organisations start planting articles and preparing self-serving reports themselves or through their associates, which
2 Indian priests arrested during raid on orphanage
St. Francis Sevadham Orphanage, located on a prime 277-acre plot of land in Madhya Pradesh, is constantly targeted Two Catholic priests have been arrested in the central Indian Madhya Pradesh state for allegedly obstructing government officials when they came for a surprise raid of a Catholic orphanage. The priests were, however, released on bail by a court on May 8, hours after they were arrested for allegedly preventing the members of the state's child rights panel during the raid on St. Francis Sevadham Orphanage in Shyampur in Sagar diocese. “We were charged with false case after we objected to the inspection team, which wanted to climb on the altar,” said Father E. P. Joshy, youth director of Sagar diocese, who was picked up by the state police along with Father Naveen B. Joshy came to the campus of the orphanage following information that a team from the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights, led by its chairperson Priyank Kanoongo, was conducting a flash raid. “The team besides inspecting the orphanage also searched the church, convent, presbytery, and two hostels of children,” the priest said. “Father Naveen and I tried to tell them that the altar of a church for any Catholic is divine. But they
Manipur violence portends fires in India’s tribal belt
The ruling BJP backs tribe status for the state’s Hindu Meitei but wants to deny it to tribal Christians in other states By all accounts, the violence in India’s northeastern state of Manipur has been a long time coming. If anything, the governments—both in the state and in New Delhi—led by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) took no steps to defuse tension or forestall violence. Manipur borders Myanmar and having a previous history of insurgencies has a heavy presence of the Indian army and paramilitary forces. It is also covered under the notorious Armed Forces Special Protection Act (AFSPA) which gives unfettered powers to the military and puts many of its actions, including the deaths of civilians at its hands, beyond the purview of the law. A conflict between two ethnic groups over constitutional status as tribes with reservations in jobs, education and elected bodies was allowed to turn anti-Christian. Christians, including Catholics, of all three or four communities in the region, the Meitei on the one hand and the Kukis, Hmars or Mizos, and Chins, on the other have been victims. The churches destroyed were creeping up towards the 100 mark as relief workers entered the troubled areas. Tens of thousands are homeless,
Justice Govind Mathur: The principles of democracy can’t be scarified at altar of majoritarianism
A protest against the Citizenship Amendment Act, in December 2019. | Reuters Just yesterday, my daughter asked me if “democracy” alone might not have sufficed in the topic of today’s speech. Was it necessary to include “constitutional”? I thought that was a significant question. We need to understand why we must stress on the Constitution, and why our democracy rests on the Constitution. Some days ago, in January this year, the Vice President of India [Jagdeep Dhankar] stated during a meeting attended by presiding officers of state legislatures that the judiciary was intruding into the territory of the legislature. He commented on the verdict of a case that was adjudicated by the Supreme Court 48 years ago, that settled in law that the basic structure of the Constitution could not be changed. He mentioned that if the elected representatives of the people of India in Parliament wished to change the Constitution, then that ruling of 1973, the Kesavananda Bharati case could not be cited to deny them that right. He contended that such opposition to changing the Constitution was against the principle of democracy. The judiciary, in the opinion of the Vice President, was extending its reach by ruling thus. According to the
