In Bhayander, at the Hebron prayer hall of the Church of God In India, the Sunday morning devout were absent and a tense atmosphere prevailed despite a heavy police bandobast. A day after a group of alleged Hindu hardliners vandalised the prayer hall in the Navghar area and attacked the pastor, the eight arrested on charges of rioting said they had received information about people being converted to Christianity at the prayer meeting.“The eight accused, of which one is a woman, say they do not belong to any one particular political party. When they were arrested from parts of the Mira-Bhayandar area for their rioting, they told us they had suspected that the prayer meet was being used to convert people to Christianity, and that this had provoked the assault,” said Senior Police Inspector Mukund Mahajan from the Mira Road police station, where the case has been registered.“The bogey of forced or induced conversions has once again been raised. Pastor Philip Fernandes was beaten up mercilessly. It is shocking that despite several warnings, the state Government is turning a Nelson’s eye to the communal menace in Maharashtra,” said Joseph Dias, general secretary of the Catholic Secular Forum. “The attacks on Christians are on the rise and the state Government has not acted in a befitting manner to curb atrocities on the community.”On Saturday evening, a prayer meet at the Hebron prayer hall was disrupted by a group of about 15 to 20 people, suspected to be members of the Shiv Sena and the Bajrang Dal. In the attack, the pastor was allegedly assaulted and had to be later admitted to a local hospital.Vice-chairman of the state Minorities Commission Abraham Mathai said, “This is a very shameful incident. When I spoke to a few witnesses, they told me that these hooligans were shouting about how the Christians were being taught a lesson in Orissa and how the lesson would be repeated again in this case. I am personally meeting the Deputy Chief Minister R R Patil on Monday and shall suggest that stringent action be taken against the accused so that such actions can be discouraged.”While members of the prayer meet claimed that the pastor suffered severe injuries, the police refuted the claims, stating that the injuries were superficial. “Moreover, the claims of the complainants that property worth Rs 4 lakh was damaged by the mob are also incorrect. The mob broke a window of the place where the meet was going on and vandalised a water tanker. The damage maybe about Rs 50,000,” said Mahajan.
