Church leaders today called on the Karnataka government to bring the real perpetrators of sectarian violence in 2008 to justice, following its decision yesterday to drop charges leveled at 338 Christian youths.

Karnataka’s decision to withdraw charges against the Christian youths is highly commendable, but the guilty ones are still at large, they said.

Charges were leveled at the Christians for reacting against a wave of attacks in 2008 against churches and prayer halls by militant Hindu groups who had accused Christians of trying to make forced conversions.

The decision to withdraw the charges was made by state Chief Minister D. V. Sadananda Gowda at a cabinet meeting yesterday.

“The Church in Karnataka is grateful to the government, but this is not enough,” Archbishop Bernard Moras of Bangalore said.

“The government has failed to identify those who made innocent youths suffer for more than three years,” said the archbishop, who is also the president of Karnataka United Christian Forum for Human Rights.

He urged the government to reject a report from an inquiry into the violence by Justice B. K. Somashekhara Commission, as it had not identified any of the real ringleaders.

Another Catholic bishop questioned why it took so long to drop the charges.

“We knocked at every possible door. If this decision was taken earlier we would have been much happier,” said Bishop Aloysius Paul D’Souza of Mangalore.

Many of the youths who were charged expressed relief but said they should never have been accused in the first place.

One of them, Stany D’Cunha from Mangalore, said: “I had to attend court nine times in the last three years because a criminal case was registered against me because I was in a prayer group in our church.”

Before the cabinet meeting yesterday, the chief minister also assured the Christian community the government will help restore 83-churches in the state.

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