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Christians seek expulsion of Joseph from minority panel

The differences between the National Minorities Commission and the Christian organisations have increased further with a section of the community seeking the replacement of Christian member John Joseph and reconstitution of the panel.

Though the Catholic Bishops Conference of India, the highest-level body of Catholics in the country, is yet to come out with this demand it is likely to take up the issue seriously, according to highly-placed sources. Apparently, a section of the community was strongly irritated by some of Joseph's remarks.

Before flying to New Delhi for a meeting, CBCI president Archbishop Cyril Mar Baselios said that he would discuss the developments with other Christian denominations.

The chances of the much-hyped dialogue between Christian and Hindu leaders also remained bleak with the Christian leaders expressing displeasure over the NMC playing broker.

The differences cropped up after NMC held forth that the recent attacks on Christians were isolated incidents. Events took a turn for the worse with John Joseph's statement that Christian radicals were active in states like Kerala, Andhra Pradesh, Bihar and the north-east to counter the atrocities.

Joseph made the revelations after a half-an-hour meeting with Archbishop Cyril Mar Baselios in Thiruvananthapuram on Saturday.

Though the latter was present during Joseph's meeting with media persons, he strongly opposed the claims of the NMC on the attacks. However, he had refused to comment on Joseph's remarks about Christian militancy and sought to distance himself from the comments.

Joseph omitted Kerala from the list of militant states in a statement the next day, but it did little to pacify the community.

The Archbishop maintained that the incidents were not merely isolated but had underlying links and it was high-time that the government initiated a thorough investigation and bring out the truth. He said that the NMC had damaged its credibility by saying otherwise.

The All India Catholic Congress denounced the statements of Joseph and alleged that the Christian representative was acting against the community. Forum secretary Joe Vithayathil demanded Joseph's expulsion who, he said, 'joined the commission to promote himself, deliberately derogating Christian churches and threatening them'.

Senior Congress leader Pala K M Mathew also raised the same demand. Holding that the member's attitude detrimental to the interests of the community, he said it had forfeited the confidence of the community.

United Christian Forum for Human Rights national convenor John Dayal, who met the Archbishop here on Tuesday, also accused the NCM member of toeing the Hindutva line.

UNI

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