ICC Note: After a group of unidentified individuals set a car and two bikes parked outside of a church on fire in Kerala, India, local police have yet to make any significant progress in finding the attackers. The church’s pastor reported that a year prior he was approached by a group asking him to cease vacation Bible school activities. Though police questioned local pro-Hindu organizations, all of them denied any connection to the attack.
04/08/2015 India (UCAN India) – Kerala police is yet to make any headway into the case of unidentified people setting afire two bikes and a car parked in front of a Pentecostal Church at Kaniyambal in Kunnamkulam last month.
Police had questioned all the functionaries of pro-Hindu organizations in the locality, but all of them denied any links with miscreants, Circle Inspector of Police in Kunnamkulam Krishna Das told the Indian Express newspaper.
The pastor of the church said that last year some persons had asked him to stop conducting vacation Bible class at the church.
The March 26 attack was just ahead of this years vacation Bible classes. Those who had threatened the pastor last year were not local people and they did not reveal their identity, the newspaper said quoting sources.
State Home Minister Ramesh Chennithala, who visited the church recently said that if the local police did not make any headway in the investigation, the case would be handed over to the Crime Branch.
He also said that the attempt by some people to cause communal hatred in a place like Kunnamkulam known for religious diversity and communal harmony need to be condemned.
CPM state secretary Kodiyeri Balakrishan, who had visited the church on April 1, had said that the ruling UDF Government was going soft on the alleged atrocities committed by Sangh outfits.
