#Ra Murugavel

[indizombie]

The attacks against Christians in Tamil Nadu rarely get counted as hate crimes or communal violence. In many cases, Murugavel said, the police broker a compromise between the aggressors and the victims. A Madras High Court lawyer and former Public Prosecutor based in Chennai said that the police also systematically downplay the seriousness of the cases. “On the occasions they do register cases, they avoid those sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) that deal specifically with religious violence such as 295 (defiling a place of worship), 295A (outraging religious sentiments), 296 (disturbing a religious assembly), 153 (provoking a riot) and 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups),” the senior lawyer said. Another lawyer who provides legal aid to persecuted Christians in the Delta region of Tamil Nadu. said that by not invoking the sections of the law that deal with communal violence, the police are able to pass off the well orchestrated attacks as conflict between individuals. “The political motivation behind the attacks is rarely the focus of the police investigation. It helps protect the leaders who instigate violence. This also helps the Dravidian parties maintain that Tamil Nadu is a secular state,” the lawyer said.

Nithya Pandian, ‘The systematic attack on Christians in Tamil Nadu’s Hindutva laboratory’, News Minute