Panaji (Goa): On the backdrop of All India Hindu Convention, Goa Church has questioned silence of Goa government over the divisive role played by some forces. The Church, however, has not named the convention in their press note which is released here.
“We question the absolute silence of the Government of Goa over the increasing use of Goan soil for social and religious conventions which propagate divisive, anti-national and terrorist ideologies,” Fr Savio Fernandes, Executive Secretary of Council for Social Justice and Peace, a wing of Goa Church, said.
“The State Government’s ban against certain groups and individuals from entering the State while permitting their affiliate organisations and collaborators to have a free run at spreading hate and seditious ideologies is hypocritical, worrisome and threatening to the communal harmony in the State,” Fernandes has said in a press statement released here.
The statement is issued at the backdrop of just concluded All India Hindu Convention which has passed several resolutions including India to be declared Hindu Nation.
“The emboldened rantings from some of the religious leaders and politicians to foist a theocratic state are an open rejection of the secular and democratic ideals of the Constitution of India. The advice given to people of a particular faith to store arms in their houses is tantamount to a call to violence and terrorism,” he said.
Fernandes said “the people of Goa need to know the mind of the government about how such divisive, discriminatory and violent statements as pointed out above are different from the slogans of ‘Azaadi’ and sympathy to the Jammu and Kashmir or Naxalite issue, in which students and social activists are hauled up and even jailed for sedition and anti-national activity.”
“The Goa Government owes a response to its people in the background of the nationwide growing insecurity and anguish among citizens, including concerns raised by 65 retired IAS and IPS officers about the ‘tacit complicity or active encouragement of state machinery’ in relation to activities inciting intolerance, vigilantism and hyper nationalism,” he said.
Team TNV
