Cops round up 5 for pastor attack

Five persons have been arrested and remanded to police custody for two days for allegedly attacking a priest and objecting to his conducting...

Five persons have been arrested and remanded to police custody for two days for allegedly attacking a priest and objecting to his conducting a prayer service at a municipal school in Chembur in Mumbai, police said today.

The incident took place on Sunday when a group barged into a municipal school hall where over a hundred worshippers of the Abundant Life Assembly Church had gathered for prayers and asked them to call off the prayers.

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‘‘The Ordinance is part of Jayalalithaa’s efforts to placate and please the Sangh Parivar, to get her out of the corruption charges,’’ chairman Udit Raj said here.

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The accused objected to Pastor Gabriel Lalzare conducting prayers in the school hall and demanded that they suspend the services. When the pastor objected, two of the youths allegedly slapped him.

The youths were arrested the same evening and remanded to custody for two days, police said adding, the accused have been charged under Section 323, a non-cognisable offence.

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Pastor Lalzare on his part charged that his assailants were RSS men. He said that he had only read about fear till he experienced it that day.

‘‘There was the Graham Staines attack in Orissa or the one in Thane last year, but they were still in far-off places. It never hit home,’’ he said. He had been attacked earlier also — on October 9 — but had continued work.

However, the RSS has denied any hand in Sunday’s incident.

‘‘We were having one of our meetings at that time at Kurla. So how would we be involved?’’ said RSS prachar pramukh Vasant Tambe.

This is the second such attack in a month.

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Earlier, two members of the Grace Baptist Church were assaulted by unidentified people while returning home from prayer service on October 6.