Indian Christians reject commissions findings

BANGALORE (agencies) The Christian community in India has strongly reacted to the biased findings of Justice Somashekara Commission report, set up in September 2008 to probe the widespread communal attacks on churches in the state of Karnataka. The final report was submitted to the chief minister on 28 January. The fall of 2008 saw a bushfire of anti Christian violence spreading across southern and central India sparked by the rumours that Christians were behind the assassination of Hindu fundamentalist leader Swami Laxmananada Saraswati. Despite Maoists accepting responsibility for his murder, Bajrang Dal led mobs went on a rampage in the district of Kandhamal, Orissa in August, torching churches , schools and homes and forcing evacuation by thousands of terrified Christians to camps. The rash of riots spread to Karnataka, Kerala and Tamil Nadu states in the South, Madhya Pradesh in Central India and the State of Uttar Pradesh up North. Close to thirty people died in the violence, hundreds of churches and homes were torched and thousands forced to flee to jungles to escape the communal violence. Justice Somashekara Commission was set up in Karnataka by the State Government to investigate the communal violence and look into the grievances of the Christian community in Karnataka. The Christian disappointment with the Commission stems from its findings which, despite ample evidence, have absolved Sangh Parivar and the BJPs State Govt of any complicity in the wide spread and well documented anti Christian violence.

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