Cooper on his way out, VHP compiles list of 50 to follow

Not satisfied with the notice asking US evangelist Joseph Cooper, who was injured in an attack by alleged RSS men recently, to leave the cou...

Not satisfied with the notice asking US evangelist Joseph Cooper, who was injured in an attack by alleged RSS men recently, to leave the country within a week, the VHP in Kerala has prepared a list of 50-odd foreign missionaries who are ‘‘similarly’’ engaged in forced religious conversions or are attending religious functions in ‘‘blatant violation’’ of their visa provisions.

‘‘We have names of 50 foreign missionaries, and our local units are gathering more information,’’ VHP state organising secretary Kummanam Rajasekharan told UNI today. The list would be submitted to the state government seeking immediate deportation of all foreign missionaries violating the rules.

‘‘If the government fails to act, then it will have to face ‘direct action’ in the form of agitations,’’ Rajasekharan warned.

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Top RSS leaders confirmed that they are also in the process of gathering information on the foreign missionaries. Among other areas, local VHP units have been directed to monitor activities of foreign missionaries visiting tribal regions like Attapadi, from where ‘‘a large number of religious conversions have been reported’’.

Demanding the immediate arrest of Cooper, Rajasekharan claimed that it was in the presence of him that two Hindus were converted to Christianity at Puliyam, near Kilimanoor, last week.

VHP district secretary K. Sughathan went one step further and filed a petition in a lower court here seeking Cooper’s prosecution for ‘‘violating visa rules’’ and ‘‘hurting religious sentiments’’. The plea will be heard tomorrow.

According to sources close to Cooper, the missionary may well be on his way home (New Jersey, US) by then. Though discharged from the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences after treatment of the injuries he received in the attack, the missionary is still staying in the hospital under a special request on grounds of security but will reportedly definitely leave India in the next two days.

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Rajasekharan said the VHP was filing daily reports to the Union Home Ministry on developments in connection with the “violation” of visa rules by Cooper. It was on the direction of the ministry that the state police had issued directions to the missionary to leave the country, he claimed.

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