The Christian Community has reacted with shock and concern over the
massacre of 22 innocent Kashmiri Pandit men, women and children by
terrorists in the Valley.

Major Christian organisations and activists issued a joint statement
today expressing solidarity with the Kashmiri Pandit community in
their hour of grief, and demanded swift action against the
perpetrators of the heinous crime which was meant to intimidate the
Pandits and sabotage the peace process in the State.

The joint statement was issued by All India Catholic Union president
Dr Maria E Menezes, All India Christian Council president Dr Joseph D
Souza, Dr John Dayal, Delhi Catholic Archdiocese Justice and Peace
Commission coordinator Sr. Mary Scaria, New Delhi YMCA president
Elwin Nathaniel and general secretary Philip Jadhav, and pioneering
children’s right activist Joseph Gathia.

“We are deeply disturbed and anguished at the brutal slaying of
innocent people, including children, in this act of war against
humanity. The targeting of any particular community in democratic,
plural and secular India – whether it is of Pandits in Kashmir,
Muslims and Christians in Gujarat, or Dalits elsewhere – is specially
heinous as it is meant to terrorise an entire people and hold them
hostage to narrow sectarian or political ends.

It has been Kashmir’s tragedy that in the last decade or so, it has
seen many such occurrences, including repeated attacks on the
Pandits, and on Sikhs. Every time there is a movement forward
towards peace, it is halted and reversed by such a bloody interlude.
The international community also cannot shirk its responsibility in
the cross–border origins of such terrorism. The Central and State
governments must been seen to be acting to bring the culprits to boom
and to prevent a recurrence of such crime.

It is gratifying and a wholesome portent that the entire Muslim
community of the Kashmir valley, itself victim of terrorism, and the
country has categorically denounced this violence and has made common
cause with the Pandits. The solidarity of all communities will give
the nation strength to emerge from such trials.
------------
Released to the Media for Publication by Dr John Dayal