The exercise began in earnest in Greater Kailash where beat constables began visiting the Christian families. Apprehensive families started calling up Father Monto, the priest in charge of the GK church, enquiring about the verification drive. A resident of M-block, GK I, Neera Mathew (name changed to protect identity), panicked after the police visit. ``I was in Mumbai during the communal riots. The identification of families made them easy targets then,'' she said.

It started on January 28 when two policemen came knocking at the Catholic church at GK-I police station area. The 27-year-old church is housed amidst bungalows and serves as a church-cum-residence for the priest with a congregation of 250-odd members. When the policemen arrived at E-142, the priest was away. An employee of the church answered the bell.

The policemen asked him to give them a list of names and addresses of the Christian families in the GK police station area. The church employee told the police whatever names and addresses he could recollect. ``When I came back, I was panicky. I did not know what to do,'' said Father Monto.

The next day, two policemen visited the church and asked the priest for the list of Christian families living in the area. ``They said they wanted the list for security purposes so I handed them over the list,'' says Father Monto.

Since then, the police have been visiting houses. Says Sujata Palathinkal, resident of Pamposh Enclave in south Delhi, ``The police visited my house when my husband was at work. They asked us how long we had been living here, whether we were apprehensive and what our fears were. They were very nice to us. But anonymity offers a kind of security and suddenly we felt uncomfortable''.

Defending the drive, police commissioner V.N. Singh told Express Newsline: ``The addresses of residents are known to everybody. The police just want to know the location so that they can reach there faster in case someone targets them. I do not think the exercise will increase the vulnerability of the families''.

The drive has been restricted to south Delhi alone. The reason is not divulged. ``The drive has been initiated by the south Delhi District Commissioner of Police Pradeep Srivastav. It has not been done by any order from higher officers,'' said Singh.DCP Srivastav said: ``We want the beat constable to know the addresses of Christian families so that he can handle any untoward incident better. We have been holding inter-community meetings and identifying churches as a part of the scheme. If this makes them feel insecure, we will stop the exercise''.

The Archbishop of Delhi Alan de Lastic was curious as to why the exercise was being undertaken. ``I do not know why it is GK. We have a large number of Catholics there. We don't know what exactly happened. All sorts of people are doing funny things. Some say Christians are joining hands with the Muslims.'' If anything else, the drive has helped to increase the insecurities of the Christians. ``Earlier we were part of the crowd. Now we are being singled out on the basis of a religious belief for I don't know what reason,'' said a Christian who did not want to be identified.

In Okhla, the parish priest says that the undercurrent of insecurity has been there for a long time, even before the Gujarat incidents. In the adjoining Faridabad, a local paper carried a news item saying that the Bajrang Dal has forbidden Christian families to hold any function, last month. A few months ago, a place called Masihgarh near Sukhdev Vihar was renamed as Ramgarh in locally published maps.

``Even before the incidents, some men claiming to be from IB wanted my name and all the names of my parish. I refused to give it to them,'' said Father Sebastian, priest of the Okhla church.