The Believers Church of Kerala has come under the scanner for having received a whopping 1044 crore of Rupees (about 250 million US dollars) in the last 18 years from abroad. The state government wants the Center to investigate the source of these funds.
Authoritative sources have informed that the LDF government in the state is planning to request the Central government to get these remittances investigated properly. The Church is headed by K. P. Yohannan. Believers Church is a Christian evangelical body that is situated in Thimbala in the Pathanamathitta district. This Church was also in the news recently
for irregularities in the purchase of a plot of land worth Rs 135
crores. According to one state government official, the church had violated rules regarding land use in the acquisition.
The state home minister has said that the Central government should get the dealings of this church investigate because of the involvement of massive foreign funds. The Believers Church has denied all allegations of wrong-doing. The church officials say they are filing their accounts properly with the state and central governments. The head of the Believers Church Bishop Simon John has said that the Church has got permission from the central government for accepting and using foreign funds.
According to official government figures, about two billion dollars are arriving into India every year from Western and Islamic countries to finance the running of churches, mosques and NGOs. About 80 percent of the total foreign funding from Christian agencies is being earmarked for the states of Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu alone.
What is the game? Why only these two states? These two states single-handedly were responsible for the fall of the NDA government in the last elections. BJP individually did not do too badly for itself in the last general elections, but its allies in these two states were beaten badly and the NDA lost.
Reverend D’souza
catholicunion@eml.cc
Filed under: Corruption, Religion
The accusations have actually been retracted in most all of the newspapers that printed these lies. These are just bad rumors and there is no evidence against this ministry or the others that have been recently lied about.