Author: PTI
Publication: Rediff.com
Date: February 14, 2006
URL: http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/feb/14jk.htm
The detention of Christian missionaries, who
were allegedly trying to convert earthquake-affected people of Uri Tehsil
in Jammu and Kashmir under the garb of providing relief, has once again brought
to light the role of missionaries in the state under scanner.
The missionaries, claiming to be members of
the Bible Society of India, had to shut their shop in quake-hit areas of Uri
following complaints from locals that they were luring people to Christianity
by offering monetary incentives, official sources said here.
A senior police official said the police had
warned the missionaries to stop conversion move failing which a case would
be registered against them. The group of missionaries from the Kashmir chapter
of the Bible Society of India had been visiting Madian village in Uri sector
and had distributed gas cylinders, water bottles, audio cassettes and a copy
of the New Testament in Urdu to 230 families of the village, the official
said.
Police began investigations into the complaints
while the missionaries decided to beat a hasty retreat, he added.
This is the second such incident in Jammu
and Kashmir. The Christain missionaries have been active in the state on the
educational front for over 150 years without interfering in religious matters
of the locals.
In November, 2003, the foreigners section
of the state police had ordered deportation of Dutch national Father Jacobs
Borst alias Jim Borst as his visa to stay in Kashmir had expired two months
earlier. He was also charged with luring students of his two schools to Christainity.
Borst, who runs Good Shepherds School at Pattan
in Baramulla district and Pulwama town, was a principal at St Joseph Higher
Secondary till 1996 when he retired. He, however, continued to stay in the
valley even after the deportation notice was served on him. Borst was seen
in Srinagar at the end of 2005 as he had managed to get a special extension
to his stay in Srinagar.
A police inquiry into the activities of Borst
revealed that he was allegedly running makeshift churches within his school
premises and had converted 50 students to Christianity. Militants in Pulwama
had hurled a grenade at the school in 2004 in which several children were
injured.
The Catholic Church in Srinagar denounced
the alleged activities of Brost and said he had no connection with it. CMS
Tyndal Biscoe School and Burn Hall School in Srinagar and St Joseph's School
in Baramulla have rendered yeoman service in the educational sector in Kashmir
valley.
Their record with regard to interference in
religious affairs or conversions has been a clean slate.
