A white paper on the Manipur ethnic violence, stricter laws against hate speech and the demand to have a national task force to deal with stray dogs were among some of the key issues raised by members during Zero Hour in the Lok Sabha on Thursday.
Congress chief whip Kodikunnil Suresh urged the government to come out with a White paper on the ethnic violence in Manipur and claimed Christian missionaries and priests are facing threats with churches being vandalised in some States.
‘Churches vandalised’
He alleged repeated vandalisation of churches in Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan and “continued assault on Christian missionaries and priests by the right-wing groups is alarming”.
“The arrest of Father Anil Mathew who was wrongly implicated and jailed shows hatred against Christian missionaries and priests by the Madhya Pradesh government. I request the Madhya Pradesh government to seek a report in this matter and the human rights commission to take up the matter suo motu,” Mr. Suresh said.
Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) member Danish Ali, raising the issue of hate speeches, said: “There are a lot of hate speeches in the country and the atmosphere in the country is being disturbed... I request that there should be a strict law against this.”
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Stray dog problem
Lok Sabha member from Tamil Nadu’s Sivaganga and Congress leader Karti Chidambaram raised the menace of stray dogs and urged Prime Minister Narendra Modi to constitute a national task force to deal with it.
He alleged that the Ministry of Animal Husbandry or Ministry of Health and Family Welfare do not take responsibility and local bodies do not have the fund or the expertise to implement the animal birth control (ABC) rules.
“In India, we have six crore stray dogs, we spend $150 million in rabies vaccines... 36 per cent of all rabies cases in the world are in India. Recently in Chennai, a dog bit 29 people and they all had to be hospitalised because after testing, it was found that the dog had rabies,” Mr. Chidambaram said.
“In Ahmedabad, industrialist Parag Desai, who went for a walk in the morning, was chased by dogs and in panic he fell down and hurt himself... I demand that the Prime Minister constitutes a national task force to fund this and deal with the problem,” he added.
