Christian census is on: Centre

NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Embarrassed by the The Indian Express report on a drive by the Delhi police to identify the Christians in the Capital, ...

NEW DELHI, Feb 4: Embarrassed by the The Indian Express report on a drive by the Delhi police to identify the Christians in the Capital, the Union Government today said the exercise was a 8220;mere survey8221; to ensure proper security to the members of the minority community and not a 8220;census8221;.8220;No census of Christians is been conducted in any part of the country including Delhi,8221; Information and Broadcasting Minister Pramod Mahajan said today. The word census, incidentally, occur only in the headline of the story. The Newsline report which Mahajan was referring to had clearly said that that it was an identification drive conducted by the Delhi Police.

Mahajan said the police had only conducted a survey as a measure of abundant caution to protect Christians. There was an established system for carrying out a census in the country and it is never done by the police, Mahajan said.Defending the drive, police commissioner V.N. Singh had told Express Newsline: 8220;The addresses of residents are known to everybody.The police just want to know the location so that they can reach there faster in case someone targets them. I do not think the exercise will increase the vulnerability of the families.8221;

The Commissioner had also said that the drive was restricted to south Delhi and was initiated by the south Delhi District Commissioner of Police Pradeep Srivastava. DCP Srivastava had said: 8220;We want the beat constable to know the addresses of Christian families so that he can handle any untoward incident better8230;If this makes them feel insecure, we will stop the exercise.8221;

Many of the Christian families who were visited by the police for the 8220;identification8221; had expressed their displeasure at the 8220;survey.8221; They had said that the identification drive would make them easy targets. Mahajan today said the survey has been conducted following a complaint to Delhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit by a Christian couple that they faced a threat to their lives, he said, adding that Dikshit had referred the matter topolice.

Defending the move, Dikshit said 8220;I requested the police to give them Christian protection because I had received complaints. I would have done the same for any citizen of Delhi. And whatever the police did was due to security reasons.8221;

Earlier Mahajan said the Delhi police had done no wrong by carrying out the survey to know which areas had concentration of people belonging to that community. 8220;This was done to provide necessary security to them,8221; he asserted.