Evangelists behind Shankaracharya Arrest?

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Christian Evangelists behind Shankaracharya Arrest: Saraswati

 

http://news.newkerala.com/india-news/?action=fullnews&id=42429

 

[india News]: Varanasi, Nov.13 2004

 

Hindu seers in India's northern holy city of Varanasi began a

massive agitation for the release of one of the most senior Hindu

priests, arrested in connection with the murder of a temple

official, on Saturday.

 

Jayendra Saraswathi, venerated by millions of Hindus, was arrested

late on Thursday in southern Andhra Pradesh by police from the

neighbouring state of Tamil Nadu, where he heads a Hindu monastery

in the pilgrim town of Kanchipuram.

 

The court has sent Saraswathi, 60, into judicial custody for 15 days

at a high-security prison to allow police more time to investigate

the murder. His lawyers have described as baseless the charges of

murder and abetment and conspiracy to murder that have been made by

police.

 

The protestors alleged a conspiracy by Christian leaders as the seer

had managed to foil their conversion plans.

 

"In southern India Shankaracharya ji maharaj had worked for Hindus.

Christians were feeling threatened as he was re- converting the

people who were forcibly taken into Christianity. So this is a

conspiracy by the Christian community," said Narendranan Saraswati,

a self-proclaimed saint.

 

Conversions are an extremely sensitive communal flashpoint in the

Hindu-majority India with radical Hindus accusing the Christian

missionaries of luring poor tribals and villagers with promises of

money and employment.

 

"In any point of view this arrest is not right and Shankaracharya is

an exalted post and this is an attack and conspiracy against the 900

million of his followers," added Jugal Kishore Shukla, regional head

of the radical Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP), which is spearheading

the campaign.

 

Temple official Sankaraman (eds: one name), who is said to have been

a critic of the religious leader, was hacked to death in an ancient

temple in Kanchipuram in early September. The killing sparked

protests by Tamil Nadu's main opposition party.

 

Police have already arrested 14 people over the incident.

 

The leader is the head of one of five monasteries across India that

are said to have been founded in the eighth century by the Hindu

philosopher and religious reformer, Adi Shankaracharya, from whose

name his official title derives.

 

Hindus today revere the heads of these monasteries, although their

religion has no exact counterpart of the strict hierarchy of some

other religions.

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