Hindus in India have removed a Jesus Christ statue from a Christian cemetery after the property owners received complaints.
According to CBN News, the 12-foot statue was removed March 3 from Mahima Betta cemetery in a town just 30 miles north of Bangalore, India.
“It is very sad, unfortunate and regrettable that the police, bowing to the pressure of a few outsiders, have forcefully removed the statue of Lord Jesus,” Archbishop Peter Machado wrote March 4 in an article for AsiaNews.
“It is a blow to the communal harmony of the people in our villages and also a violation of the religious freedom guaranteed to us by the Indian Constitution,” Machado said.
Machado told the Catholic News Agency that Christians have been visiting the statue at the cemetery for some 40 years “without any difficulty.”
“There is absolutely no problem from local people to our burials, nor our prayers and devotions on the hill,” he said.
Machado said recently, however, non-Christians from outside the community have been spreading rumors that the cemetery is being used for conversions.
“The local villagers have publicly said that the presence of Christians and their prayers are absolutely no problem for them and, this being the case, why should some outsiders come and disturb the harmony of the village?” the archbishop asked.
He added that he’s asked that the statue be reinstalled.
“The Christians of…
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