Church asks minister to tackle violence: Mangalore

The Church in Mangalore has urged Home Minister V S Acharya to tackle the 'Hindu extremism' than blaming the media for "overreacting" and "unnecessarily hyping up" the recent spate of attacks by Hindutva groups.

The Home Minister on Sunday said the govt. plans to set up a media ombudsman to regulate coverage after "minor incidents have been misinterpreted and taken out of context."

The reaction comes weeks after citizens' nation-wide protested the attack by members of a fringe saffron group, Sri Ram Sene, on young women in a pub in the state.

Claiming it was "protecting and preserving the Indian ethos" the Hindu activists threatened of more attacks on Valentine's Day.

The spokesperson for the Mangalore Catholic Diocese, Onil D'Souza, asked Mr. Acharya to focus more on fighting the extremism than gagging the media. Last year, even dozens of prayer halls fell victims to the Hindutva attacks.

"It is the prerogative of the media to play up or underplay an event. It does not undo the fact that there has been a systemic failure to curb the menace of vigilantism," he said.

Voicing concerns was also the principal of Badria College, Ismail N, who alleged that the state government was going soft on the "Hindutva brand of terrorism."

All acts of violence aimed at instilling fear in the minds of the people should be considered as terrorism, he said.

The proposal of the home minister has met with sharp criticism from all sides. District secretary of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) B. Madhava said it was an attempt to prevent the media from reporting freely and fairly on the 'misrule' of the Bharatiya Janata Party Government.