‘Falsehood creating unrest in country’, Centre to SC on a plea alleging Christian persecution
The Government of India on Tuesday told the Supreme Court there is no merit in the plea alleging increasing attacks on Christians in India and the petitioner has “resorted to falsehood and self-serving documents” along with press reports which have misreported such incidents. The Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) in an affidavit said that as per the inputs it has received, the majority of the incidents cited by the petitioner as attacks on Christians were wrongfully projected in news reports. The petition was filed by a Christian priest Rev. Peter Machado and others seeking to implement guidelines issued by the Supreme Court in 2018 on hate crime cases.
“The petitioners claimed to have based the petition on information gathered through sources like press reports (The Wire, The Scroll, Hindustan Times, Dainik Bhaskar, etc.), “independent” online databases, and from findings of various non-profit organizations. It is submitted that inquiries reveal that majority of the incidents alleged as Christian persecution in these reports were either false or wrongfully projected,” the affidavit said.
The plea alleges attacks on Christians based on mere conjectures. There appears to be some hidden oblique agenda in filing…creating unrest throughout…country & perhaps for getting assistance from outside…to meddle with nation’s internal affairs, said Union Home Ministry’s strongly worded affidavit against the petition filed Christian Missionaries.
In some cases, incidents of a purely criminal nature and arising out of personal issues, have been categorized as violence targeting Christians while several incidents, which were found to be true or exaggerated, were not necessarily related to incidents of violence targeting Christians, said MHA in the affidavit, in response to the plea alleging a rising number of attacks on Christian institutions and priests across the country.
When the matter came up for hearing before a bench of Justices D Y Chandrachud and A S Bopanna, Solicitor General Tushar Mehta, representing the Central government, said that the MHA has filed its response. Senior Counsel Colin Gonsalves sought time to file a rejoinder. The next hearing is scheduled for August 15.
MHA’s affidavit said that in the absence of material particulars, there exists a serious discrepancy in the facts as alleged in a petition. “In some cases, incidents of purely criminal nature and arising out of personal issues, have been categorized as violence targeting Christians. It is submitted that several incidents, which were found to be true or exaggerated, were not necessarily related to incidents of violence targeting Christians. For instance, incidents wherein merely complaints/ accusations were made against Christians had also been cited as instances of persecution of a particular community in the report,” said the affidavit.
MHA said that incidents of minor disputes with no religious/ communal angle had been published in the self-serving reports as instances of violence against Christians. “A local dispute between two parties was given a religious colour in the report. For instance, it was mentioned that one Varsha and her family (Christian) were heckled by some people at their home in Shahgarh (district Sagar, Madhya Pradesh) for not celebrating Diwali (November 6, 2021). However, it appears that there was a private dispute between the two parties, which had nothing to do with the religious background of the two parties,” MHA reply said.
The Union Home Ministry further said that a “preliminary factual check” of the plea revealed that in any alleged crime, wherein the victim practiced a particular religion, the reports sought to assume a communal reason behind the same without even ascertainment of basic facts. “About 162 incidents were not truthfully recorded and the remaining 139 were either false or deliberated projected wrongfully as instances of targeted violence against Christians,” the affidavit said adding that in many such cases, police had taken prompt action in numerous cases and conducted a necessary investigation as per rules.
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