Christian council plea to NHRC

By Our Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD, JULY 18. The All-India Christian Council has urged the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to intervene in the alleged attack on ``flimsy grounds'' on two missionary schools in Rajkot and Ahmedabad in Gujarat.

In a letter to the Chairman of the Commission, the Council executive member, Mr. Samson Christian, claimed that the Sangh Parivar volunteers ``under protection'' from the BJP Government in the State attacked the St. Mary's School in Rajkot and damaged its furniture on the ground that the India map published in the school handbook this year had shown some parts of Jammu and Kashmir as areas of Pakistan.

Mr. Christian claimed that the school authorities had already clarified that the handbook was printed by one Chamunda Press, which might have committed the error. The publisher had also apologised for the mistake believed to had been caused by computer graphics and the school authorities had withdrawn the handbook and yet the Parivar volunteers were not satisfied.

The Parivar under ``false pretext'' that the school authorities were not allowing the Hindu girl students to wear necklace or sport ``bindi'' on the forehead launched a canard against the school management. He regretted that some ``misled'' members of the National Students Union of India, the students' wing of the Congress, also supported the agitation.

Under a similar pretext, a missionary school in Odhav area in Ahmedabad was also made the target of attack though both the school managements had made it clear that no ban had been imposed on the girl students against wearing necklace or applying ``bindi''.

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