Anantnag: Security personnel keep vigil at the site of the militant attack on Amarnath Yatris in which seven pilgrims were killed and 19 others injured, at Batango in Anantnag district of South Kashmir. (PTI Photo)
The editorial in Organiser, ‘Respond Beyond Rhetoric’, comments on the “ghastly attack on pilgrims of Amarnath Yatra”. “Though there was an intelligence input and a mock drill had been conducted in Pahalgam,” it notes, “terrorists managed to display their (one) upmanship again”. While there have been threats to the Yatra, for over a decade “the pilgrimage was considered sacrosanct, with the assurance from separatist organisations”.
Questioning the timing of the attack, the editorial asks: “Why this act of terror now, where [did] things go wrong and what should be our response are the key questions”.
It notes that “since the killing of social media commander Wani” there have been a “series of cleansing operations by security forces, eliminating more than 200 militants”. “The success ratio of cross-border infiltration has drastically gone down,” it says, contending that the “financial flow to garner support for terrorism has dried up due to the massive crackdown on hawala transactions”.
“This frustrating situation” resulted in the attack on “the pilgrims from Gujarat, the state from where Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi hails and which is going to poll later this year,” the editorial says.
While noting that “despite intelligence input, we could not prevent the attack is certainly a serious concern,” it says: “This inhuman act has created a window of decisive action and we must respond beyond moral condemnations and sloganeering”.
Pre-poll appeasement
An article in Organiser slams those “psuedo-secularists” who “failed to notice as to how Karnataka was on boil when Hindu activists were being stabbed to death” in its “coastal areas”. It claims that the state has seen “a spate of Hindu killings” this year. The report notes the protests march organised by groups like “Hindu Hitarakshana Samithi”who condemned “the violence by Muslims”.
It criticises Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, who “advised Hindus” to “maintain peace but he had no word to speak against Muslims”. “Siddaramaiah, who is busy preparing for the next year’s elections, seems to be already on a Muslim appeasement drive and has targeted only Hindus and is completely avoiding uttering anything against the Muslim miscreants,” it says.
It quotes Union Minister D.V. Sadananda Gowda that “why the Congress Government was stooping to a new low in appeasing Muslims”. Against this backdrop, BJP MP Shobha Karandlaje has written to the Union Home Minister urging that the National Investigative Agency opens an office in Mangaluru “as the number of home-grown terrorists is growing” in the area.
Church in China
A report in Panchjanya says that the Western church spread its roots in China following the expansion of MNCs in the country. Now, “Christians are set to outnumber the ruling Communists”.
“Pound (Sterling) and Protestants have been the two main components of British imperialism. Both saw a slide in 2016,” it says. “To overcome the possible loss, Protestants are said to have converted some 12 crore people in China,” the report claims. As “Christians became a minority in Britain, Christian missionaries have excessively focussed on conversions in last 15-20 years in East Asian countries”.
“This endeavour has been led by the church of Britain,” and in China, the target is to take the number of 12 crore Christians to 30 crore in next two decades according to the report. “The declining population of Christians in Europe and the US has been compensated to a great extent by the conversions in China,” it says and adds, “According to missionaries, China is set to become the country with maximum Christian population.”
“The China government might consider that the situation is in its control, however the incidents of the last three decades cannot be ignored,” it says claiming that many in Europe and the US are now saying that “China can soon have a government dominated by the Church.”
Compiled by Ashutosh Bharadwaj
