Unidentified persons vandalised a church and damaged the statues of baby Jesus and Mother Mary in St. Mary’s Church in the Agra Cantonment area early on Thursday morning.
The attack caused outrage and anguish. Members of the local Christian community here took out a peaceful candle march in the evening.
The incident comes weeks after a nun was gang-raped in West Bengal. Delhi too witnessed as many as four attacks on Christian places of worship between December 2014 and January 2015.
Father Moon Lazarus, priest at the St. Mary’s Church, said he woke up when the security alarm of a car parked on the church premises went off around 3 a.m. He saw the car doors open and the windows smashed.
He told the police that the manner in which the statues of Jesus and Mother Mary were damaged showed it was to “provoke” the Christians.
Previous instances:
A church in West Delhi’s Vikaspuri allegedly vandalised by two men. Church authorities claim that the attack was carried out to stoke communal tension. > Read more
Crib kept on the premises of the Church of Resurrection in Rohini was found charred. Church officials claim someone threw a burning substance on the crib to set it on fire > Read more
Stones were thrown at a Syro-Malabar Catholic Church at Jasola in Okhla when mass was being celebrated around 6.45 p.m. > Read more
Interiors of St. Sebastian’s Church, Dilshad Garden, were destroyed in a fire. Church authorities alleged that it “could be the work of some miscreants”. > Read more