Indian bishop slams intimidation of Catholic school staff

A Catholic bishop has condemned the harassment of staff from a Church-run school, including a priest and two nuns, while they were on a picnic, by alleged Hindu activists in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh. “The men stopped us on spotting the nuns and some of our staff wearing rosaries around their necks, and started interrogating us,” said Father Sonu Vansuniya, the principal of New Catholic Mission Sch-ool under the Catholic diocese of Jhabua. The men claimed to be members of the Hindu organization, Bajrang Dal, or the army of the Hindu god Hanuman, and he recalled that they “suspected we were carry-ing out conversion activities.” “They stopped us from getting into our bus after leaving the park we were visiting, and instead told us to accompany them to the nearest police station,” Vansuniya told on May 2. When refused, they began questioning members of the staff, mostly from indige-nous tribal or Dalit (formerly untouchable) backgrounds, if “they were being lured or forced to accept Christianity,” he said. Meanwhile, some police officers arrived at the scene and repeated the same questions that the Hindu acti-vists were posing. “Failing to find anything wrong or obje-ctionable, the police allowed us to leave after around two hours of harassment in full public view,” Vansuniya said. Bishop Thomas Mathew Kutti-mackal of the Indore diocese condemned the incident that occurred in his jurisdiction.