India’s top court has directed seven state governments to present details of the action taken by their law enforcement agencies in cases of alleged attacks against Christians and their institutions.
A Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice D Y Chandrachud on Feb. 6 ordered the state of Bihar, Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Odisha, Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, and Uttar Pradesh to present the information within three weeks.
The order came while hearing a public interest petition (PIL) filed by Archbishop Peter Machado of Bangalore along with the National Solidarity Forum and the Evangelical Fellowship of India.
The Supreme Court at an earlier hearing on Sept. 1 last year had directed the federal home ministry to obtain reports from eight states to enable it to assess the claims of the Christian petitioners on the alleged violent incidents against their community members and institutions.
The eights states were to provide information on the incidents of “criminal wrongdoings” that occurred in 2021, as alleged in the petitions, verifying the registration of cases by police on receiving information about the crime, the status of investigations, the arrests made, and charges filed in court for prosecuting the culprits.
The Supreme Court said the verification exercise was needed to determine whether directions issued by it in a number of earlier judgments were being followed by the provincial authorities. The judgments made the states accountable for preventing violence and taking action against perpetrators of sectarian violence, especially the lynchings of minorities.