Hindu watchdog groups disrupted Christmas mass in parts of India, including the main Modi territory, ahead of local elections in the coming months.
Hardline Hindu groups affiliated with Modi’s party have repeatedly accused the Missionaries of lead religious conversion programs under the guise of charity, offering poor Hindus and tribal communities money, free education and accommodation.
“Shocked to hear that (on) Christmas, the Union Ministry FROZEN ALL BANK ACCOUNTS of Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity in India!” Mamata Banerjee, the state’s chief minister, wrote in a tweet.
“Its 22,000 patients and workers have been left without food and medicine. Although the law is paramount, humanitarian efforts must not be compromised,” said Banerjee, an opposition leader and critic of Modi’s government.
Mother Teresa, a Roman Catholic nun who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 and died in 1997, founded the Missionaries of Charity in 1950.
Based in the state of West Bengal, the Missionaries of Charity have more than 3,000 nuns around the world who run hospices, community kitchens, schools, leprosariums and homes for abandoned children.
Missionaries of Charity officials were not available for comment, while the federal Interior Ministry said the government will issue a statement once an initial investigation has been completed.
“I urge the press not to mix the financial irregularities of a charity group with religious sentiments. The decision to freeze the accounts has nothing to do with Christianity,” said an official, requesting anonymity for not being authorized to speak to the media.
The Vicar General of the Calcutta Archdiocese, Dominic Gomes, said the freezing of West Bengal accounts was “a cruel Christmas gift to the poorest of the poor.”
Activists say religious minorities in India have faced higher levels of discrimination and violence since the Bharatiya Janata Hindu Nationalist Party (BJP) de Modi came to power in 2014.
The Modi government rejects having a radical “Hindutva” (Hindu hegemony) agenda and insists that people of all religions have the same rights.
In 2020, the United States Commission for International Religious Freedom included the India as a “country of special concern” for the first time since 2004.
Source From: Ambito
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