Morning fire at church in Delhi

A priest points to the charred interiors of St Sebastian’s Church, which was
attacked on December 1

TT, New Delhi, Jan. 3: A month after a church was gutted in east Delhi, a crib was found charred inside a church complex in outer Delhi this morning.

Police said short-circuit might have caused the fire, but the church management alleged that someone threw a burning substance at the crib to set it ablaze.

The incident took place in the early hours of Saturday at the Church of Redemption in Outer Delhi's Rohini. The head priest, Father Cyril Patrick, was the first to notice it and informed the police around 8am.

"A decorative light was placed around the crib and it is possible that the wires caught fire due to a short-circuit, burning down the entire structure," a senior police officer said, but added that a probe was on.

"We are examining the footage of the closed-circuit television camera installed inside the church premises," the officer said.

Father Cyril Patrick said the CCTV footage showed someone throwing a burning object inside the church premises. "I do not want to name any person or group but I think this is a deliberate mischief to create panic," he said.

"If short circuit had burnt the crib, how are the other lights around the crib still functional? They were all connected," he said, pointing to the light around a statue of Christ.

Early this month, prominent Christian leaders had requested Prime Minister Narendra Modi to act against hate speeches as well as violence targeting the community following the alleged arson attack on St Sebastian's Church, one of east Delhi's biggest churches, on December 1.

Initially, Delhi police officers had said that short circuit was the cause of the blaze inside the St Sebastian's Church but later they found kerosene bottles on the premises, pointing at arson.

In a memorandum to the Prime Minister, the community had highlighted how Christians had been targeted in different places across the country over the past six months and requested him to intervene and take exemplary action. Home minister Rajnath Singh had then ordered Delhi police to set up a special investigation team.