By Verghese V Joseph –
Mumbai: Expressing solidarity and standing together in the aftermath of the recent ghastly serial bomb blasts that rocked Sri Lanka’s Churches and hotels on Easter Sunday, religious heads of Islamic and Christian communities in India came together to express social harmony and peace.
In a joint statement, Oswald Cardinal Gracias, Archbishop of Bombay and President, Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India (CBCI) and Maulana Mahmood A. Madani, General Secretary, Jamiat Ulama-I-Hind unequivocally condemned the dastardly acts.
In a joint statement they express their anguish and said, “The persons and the groups responsible for the serials blasts are anti-human, anti-civilization and anti-God. They are the incarnation of the most heinous forces on the earth. To associate them with any faith would be most sacrilegious to the faith itself. Therefore, the people of all faiths must disown and condemn such barbarous individuals and groups. It is our duty to expose them and banish them from civilized society.”
“The terrorist attacks become all the more gruesome if launched under the garb of religion and holy mission. Besides causing great loss of innocent lives, peace and harmony is destroyed. It is the prime duty of all faith leaders to stand up and use all our resources and to cleanse society of this evil,” the statement stated.
Attacks on religious places and during religious festivals such as Easter are perpetrated with a design to cause a divide between people of various faiths and communities. Therefore we feel it all the more necessary that we stand together with our Christian brothers everywhere and assure them that we share their sorrows and pains and express our solidarity with them.
Urging the law enforcement agencies all over the world to be more vigilant and take effective precautionary measures, they urged to make it impossible for any terrorist groups to play havoc with the life and property of civil society anywhere.
“Sri Lanka being our closest neighbour, we are ready with an offer of help to enable the victims to get over the unprecedented crisis in their lives. We propose to depute a high level delegation of various faiths to Sri Lanka to explore the possibilities of cooperation and also to offer our sincere condolence to the bereaved families,” the joint statement said.
They also sought the media’s help in maintain peace in the region. “We sincerely hope that media and peace-loving citizens of this country will extend their fullest cooperation for our endeavour against terrorism. We express our resolve to continue our struggle against terrorism and for global peace. We appeal to everyone irrespective of their religion, caste and creed to come forward to save humanity and to maintain social harmony and peace,” they added.