Towering Inferno Insight into Manoharpur killings

NewsDesk

The killing of Australian missionary, Graham Stewart Staines, is not news any longer; its ramifications, however, could well shape the history of India in the next millennium. Apart from the gruesome killing itself, there is one factor which lends itself to great worry. Journalists the world over who have visited Manoharpur village in Keonjhar district of Orissa have come back with stories that while the killing of the Christian has indeed focussed attention on the plight of the minorities in this country under saffron rule, the fact remains that the miniscule Muslim minority segment in the area had been under siege for quite some time now.

The threat to the country's towering problem of disintegration of the secular fabric cannot be minimised. Staines is now a global martyr; it is time that the nation and its government took serious note of what is happening to other minority communities as well. Providing immediate protection is a basic necessity but first, the silence of these lambs has to be broken. Many skeletons will then start tumbling out.