NEW DELHI, JUNE 27: The RSS and its frontal organisations on Tuesday launched a counter-offensive on the Christian issue, threatening to sue those trying to link them to the recent attacks on the community and their churches.As condemnation of the incidents mount, the BJP too closed ranks behind the Sangh with Home Minister L K Advani ruling out a ban on the Bajrang Dal, which has been openly issuing threats against Christians despite notices issued on the subject by the National Human Rights Commission.However, Advani today said there was ``no justification'' in banning organisations like the Bajrang Dal although he acknowledged that it was the Centre's responsibility to protect the minorities.Simultaneously, a delegation of VHP and Bajrang Dal leaders submitted a letter to the chairman of the National Minority Commission demanding a CBI inquiry into the attacks on Christians. The letter stoutly denied that their organisations had any hand in the incidents.The saffron offensive comes just a day after Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee met the Pope. The meeting was intended as a warning to the belligerent elements within the Sangh Parivar as well as a signal of reassurance to the western world of his Government's commitment to secularism. However, instead of lowering temperatures at home, the meeting seems to have sparked off a belligerent response from the Sangh.In a hard-hitting statement, RSS joint general secretary Madan Das Devi described the controversy over the Sangh's involvement in the anti-Christian attacks as an attempt to make his organisation ``a whipping boy'' to embarrass the NDA Government of which the BJP is a part.While condemning all acts of violence, whether against the minorities or anyone else, the RSS leader nevertheless reiterated the Sangh position that the issue of religious conversions would provoke protests from the people.The statement said, ``What worries the RSS is the tendency in sections of the media to promote mutual distrust by even publishing false news items to implicate it in an attempt to communalise the atmosphere.It went on to say that at least two of the four major incidents which were reported extensively in the media (in Baripada and Jhajhar) were found to be totally fabricated. And in the remaining two (in Jhabua and the Staines' murder), it has been proved that the RSS is not involved at all, it declared.Devi said similar attempts to defame the RSS were made in the past too, most notably during 1977-99, when the Janata Party was in power.Bajrang Dal national convenor Surendra Jain, while speaking to the reporters this afternoon, alleged that the Christian missionaries, some political parties and vested interests among the journalists had launched a hate campaign against his organisation and the VHP ``even though it had been conclusively proved that we were not invloved in any of the incidents.''He claimed that Bajrang Dal was against any form of violence. ``We're a socio-religious organisation,'' he quipped.
