the goan I network
PANAJI
The Council for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP), the social arm of the Goa Archdiocese has demanded that the State government “conduct a proper and thorough independent investigation in all cases of desecration which have occurred in the State.”
In a statement to reports of a desecration of a cross in Raia in South Goa, Fr Savio Fernandes the Executive Secretary of the CSJP said that it hoped the Goa Police would not “take recourse in the usual denial and diversionary tactics and finding some scapegoat to cover up such crimes, which have been contributing to the growing feelings of insecurity among the minorities in the State and the country.”
Referring to the previous cases of desecration, the Council for Social Justice and Peace (CSJP) has questioned the police for rubbishing alternate views put forth.
“One year ago the police created a spectacle by claiming to have cracked the crimes with the arrest of a Catholic taxi driver and charge-sheeting him for several desecrations across the State of Goa. Most of these cases have already been set aside by the courts for want of evidence, thus exposing the flaws in the police investigations,” Fr Fernandes said.
However rather than introspect and seriously consider the report of the ‘fact-finding team’ of civil society groups, which suggested that such incidents of desecration appeared to be the work of a highly-organized gang,
the CSJP pointed out that “these alternate views only met with denial and allegations of incompetence against the fact-finding team from the Government and the police.”
“There hardly appears any doubt in the minds of the people, cutting across communities, that such incidents of religious desecrations have a definite pattern with an intention to instil fear and provoke negative feelings among certain communities in order to disrupt the social harmony in the State of Goa,” Fr Fernandes said.
