INDIA Madhya Pradesh, another Kanoongo raid against a Catholic hostel

The president of the National Commission for the Protection of Children continues his persecutory campaign against Christian educational institutions unperturbed. After threatening to arrest the bishop of Jabalpur, he is now targeting a Katni children’s center. In a state governed by the BJP, where the elections will be held in November, the smallest are being used as a political weapon by those who should defend them.

Jabalpur () – In India, the personal battle that the president of the National Commission for Children’s Rights (NCPCR) Priyank Kanoongo has been waging for months against Catholic educational centers in Madhya Pradesh, the Indian state from which this child comes, has not ended. member of the BJP, the Hindu nationalist party of Prime Minister Narendra Modi. The last institution to end up in the crosshairs at this time is the Asha Kiran Children’s Care Institute, a shelter of the Congregation of the Mother of Carmel, an institute of Syro-Malabar nuns, in the city of Katni, located in the diocese of Jabalpur. , the same one where a few weeks ago the very bishop, Monsignor Gerald Almeida, had been the target of an arrest threat.

The pattern is always the same: Kanoongo orders a surprise inspection at a Christian-inspired youth center. And, invariably, after interrogations and searches, he produces “evidence” of fraud and forced conversions against the children. Accusations that are often deflated when they reach the courts, but only after feelings of threat against Hindus and hostility towards Christians have increased in a BJP-led state where local elections are due in November.

In Katni it was Kanoongo personally who led the operation and gave all the news live on his social profiles, shouting about the forced conversion of Hindu boys who, according to him, would be forced to participate in Christian prayers. For this reason, he filed a complaint with the police authority under the draconian anti-conversion law that is in force in Madhya Pradesh.

The nuns rejected the accusations in a note, explaining that the five boys in question are actually the same ones who have been creating disciplinary problems for some time and that they were not expelled from the hostel just to avoid returning them to the difficult environment from which they came. In practice, the president of the National Commission for the Rights of the Child, instead of taking charge of a delicate situation, uses the children for political purposes.

The sisters also recounted the story of the shelter: it was opened in Katni in 2005 at the request of the Indian Railways, in a building owned by the organization, to serve the needs of needy families who in India often live close to the ways. Later, to provide better facilities for the children, it was moved to a venue that the Jabalpur diocese built. ad hoc with their own resources. The Congregation of the Mother of Carmel also noted that it has been running shelters for children for 80 years, and that the cooperation with the district administration, the department of child protection, the police and other agencies in the area has always been good: ” They have given us timely corrections and indications that were of great help,” the sisters wrote.

Finally, they revealed another profound contradiction in the whole thing: “The children were picked up at 6 pm and returned at 9 pm. The staff were instructed not to speak or take any action against them because if they complained, the management and staff would be sent to prison. If this is the case, why did they send the children back to our center? If our institution is of the nature denounced by the president, they should have been transferred immediately. Instead, They brought them back here.”