Authoritative sources told Express Newsline that the Home Department would also send a copy to the National Commission for Minorities whose chairman Tahir Mehmood had yesterday demanded an explanation from the government on the increasing violence against minorities.

The Commission has also summoned top Gujarat officials, including the Chief Secretary, demanding an explanation on the attacks on Christians in the Dangs. Chief Minister Keshubhai Patel, however, has still not made up his mind whether to comply with the directive.

Commission member James Massey rang up P K Das, ACS in the Social Justice and Empowerment Department, yesterday, seeking details about what measures the government had initiated to protect the lives and property of the minorities since the attacks on Dangs Christians.

The sources said Union Home Minister L K Advani also talked to Patel and Minister of State for Home Haren Pandya on phone and directed them to contain the communal frenzy in Ahwa, the headquarters of the Dangs, and elsewhere in the district and provide adequate security to the minority community.

Meanwhile, Governor Anshuman Singh also directed the government to check such incidents and make adequate security arrangements in the trouble-torn areas of the Dangs, the sources said.

Singh discussed the law and order situation with Pandya at Raj Bhavan in the afternoon and asked him to initiate stringent measures to check attacks on the Christians. Pandya had gone to Raj Bhavan to attend a meeting of the State Sainik Board.

ACS, Home, V V R Subbarao said Janubhai Parmar, the chief of the Ahwa unit of the Hindu Jagaran Manch, was arrested last night, following a complaint to Pandya by the Carmelite Sisters of Charity during his Saturday visit to Ahwa that Pawar and two others had delivered inciting and provocative speeches at the December 25 rally.

The Charity, which runs the Deep Darshan High School in the Dangs headquarters, has named Ramesh Chaudhary and Pradip Patil as the accomplices of Pawar. It was not known whether the two were arrested. Pandya admitted that inciting and inflammatory speeches at the HJM rally had provoked a group of tribal Christians to stone the rally, triggering a series of violent incidents involving both the communities in the district.

He told reporters that 38 people from both the communities were arrested in connection with the incidents in which over two dozen persons, including 10 policemen, were injuries. The situation was fast returning to normalcy in the Dangs, with the police intensifying patrolling and taking all precautionary and preventive measures, he claimed.

To a query, he said he did not see any conspiracy, from within the BJP or outside, to destablise Keshubhai Patel through such violent incidents. Asked, he did not rule out the possibility of ``outsiders'' having sneaked into the Dangs from the neighbouring Maharashtra to foment trouble. ``The peace committee, headed by the Dangs district collector, has been asked to ensure that `outsiders' are not allowed entry and given shelter in the district'', he added.