New Delhi:The Christian organizations in Punjab and other states will soon hold a massive protest in the national capital against attacks on churches in view of allegations of forced conversions that have recently become rampant, as informed by the representatives of these organizations. They further declared that they will jointly address the media in New Delhi on September 15 and announce the date of their protest on the same day.
The declaration came after a meeting was held among the representatives at Yusuf Sadan in New Delhi located near Bangla Sahib Gurudwara. Representatives from Sikh and Muslim communities were also invited to attend the meeting.
The meeting was called after a series of allegations of mass conversions were reported from various districts of Punjab. Allegations of forced conversion in Taran Taran even led to a violent attack on a Catholic Church by some locals, while a vehicle belonging to the priest of the Church was also set ablaze. The attack was slammed by the Christian community from across the country, while Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann also condemned it.
Seers from the Sikh community have been raising the issue of forced conversion recently, calling for action. However, the representatives from various Christian organizations have denied allegations of any kind.
"There are several allegations that Christians are involved in forceful conversions or they are converting people from Sikhs and other communities through allurement. We only ask them to produce evidence of any kind of forced conversion or allurement. Nobody has produced any evidence so far. We will soon address a press conference in Delhi and also hold a massive but peaceful protest at Jantar Mantar on this issue," said AC Michael, National Coordinator of United Christian Forum.
"About Punjab, I want to say that we as communities never fight with each other but there are some people who might want us as two minority communities to fight within ourselves so their political motives are fulfilled," he added. Some representatives of the community also feel that there is some kind of political conspiracy behind the false allegations and propaganda of forced conversion and attacks on the church to settle the political scores.
"We follow the teachings of Jesus Christ which talks about peace and harmony but it doesn't mean that we will stay silent on oppression as well. We will have to unite and raise our voices otherwise the extremist elements will keep targeting minorities and oppressing them. All minorities should come forward and unitedly fight against these evil forces which are there in the present ruling party," said Peter Prem, Former President of YMCA.
"Nobody is doing forced conversions, people come voluntarily to us. But this is being misinterpreted. This is a conspiracy to create tension among communities because some party couldn't win elections in the state," he added.
The Christian community also claimed that if there were mass conversions of people from other religions into Christianity, their population would not have been on a declining path. "This is a clear conspiracy against minorities which has come into light in recent days. Sikh and Christian communities have been living peacefully for decades in Punjab and this kind of allegations never came up. Why this is happening is a big question," said Meenakshi Singh, founder of Unity in Compassion, an NGO working in the community
"Some people want to throw Christians out of this country. A large number of schools in the country are being run by Christian societies today. Only 3-5 % of Christian students are there in those schools and the rest are from all religious communities. If there were conversions, our population wouldn't have declined from 2.6% to 2.3%. Why are our numbers declining? This is nothing but a conspiracy by those who want to bring Hindutva into this country," she further added.
