Hate speeches made by Hindu groups, crosses desecrated: Goa on fanaticism alert

by POULOMI BANERJEE

The cemetry in Curchorem village, where crosses were desecrated and niches and graves broken PHOTO/Ajay Aggarwal/Hindustan Times

Crosses have been desecrated, hate speeches made. Fanaticism is trying to break in. There is apprehension. But Goans are determined to defeat attempts to polarise the state

Last month Goa was jolted by a spate of desecration of crosses, causing grief and alarm to the Catholic community in the state. ‘The method of destruction was the same everywhere – the base of the cross was broken by hitting it with some heavy implement,’says Father Savio Fernandes, executive secretary of the Council for Social Justice and Peace, which has been engaged in fact-finding studies into the desecrations.

It was a Saturday morning in July. Agnelo Fernandes, a retired seaman and resident of Goa’s Curchorem village was dressed to go out, but decided to call a staff member of the local church before doing so, to check with him the schedule for a Mass to celebrate the local MLA’s birthday. The committee member told him about desecrations at the church cemetery. Fernandes rushed to the cemetery – one of his daughters is buried there. “When I reached, I found bones lying near the entrance. Some crosses had been broken and niches damaged. I made my way to my daughter’s grave and the niche we had made in her memory. The granite stone covering the niche was broken. Still it didn’t strike me. Then I saw the satin bag on which I had written her name, her date of birth and the date of her death, before putting her bones in it to preserve her memory, lying on the ground. It was then that I realised that the bones lying near the entrance were my daughter’s,” he says, with barely concealed pain.

Last month Goa was jolted by a spate of desecration of crosses, causing grief and alarm to Catholics inthe state. There were also reports of a temple being vandalised. “The method of destruction was the same everywhere – the base of the cross was broken by hitting it with some heavy implement. More than 40 structures were damaged,” says Father Savio Fernandes, executive secretary of the Council for Social Justice and Peace, which has been engaged in fact-finding studies into the desecrations. In some places the headstones on the graves and niches – where families preserve the mortal remains of a departed member – were broken. Goa Police has arrested Francis Pereira, a resident of Curchorem for the desecrations and claimed that he has confessed to the crime. But more desecrations were reported after Pereira’s arrest.

Goa, says writer Brian Mendonca, means a “certain acceptance, a certain kind of flexibility to be able to look at life wholistically and to be able to accommodate various cultures and views.” But now “I think the Hindutva people are desperately trying to find a toehold in Goa,” he says.

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