Miscreants desecrate, ransack Warje church

PUNE: Miscreants broke into St Mary's Malankara Catholic Church at Warje, defaced some sacred images and tore pages of the Bible and other holy books in the early hours of Monday. They ransacked the church and stole Rs 200 from the donation box.
The incident came to light when church secretary K T Thomas George came there at 6.30 am and noticed that the church door was open.On going inside and seeing the desecration, he informed the church trustees who, in turn, called the police.
Sub-inspector A K Jarkad of the Warje Malwadi police station told TOI that the miscreants probably entered the church from the second floor by climbing up a pipe. "When they did not find anything there, they went down the first floor and broke open two cupboards. Later, they went to the ground floor and stole Rs 200 from the donation box. They also defaced the sacred images with wax," he said.
The police used sniffer dogs but they could follow the trail of the miscreants only for some distance.
The police have booked the miscreants under sections 295(A) (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs), 380 (theft in dwelling-house) and 457 (house-trespass or house-breaking by night) of the Indian Penal Code.
The incident drew sharp criticism from the Christian community. Speaking to TOI, Abraham Mathai, general secretary of the All India Christian Council, said, "I have requested police commissioner Meeran Borwankar to take stringent action against the accused."
In a joint press note, the Catholic Association of Poona (CAP) and the Pune Christian Development Society (PCDS) pointed out that while this was the first attack on a church in Pune, there have been around 3,000 attacks on different churches across the country till date. Diago Almeida of the CAP and Peter D'Cruz of the PCDS have urged the state government and the city police commissioner to identify the culprits and punish them.