NEW DELHI, Feb 20: Leaders of India’s tiny Christian community on Wednesday condemned a recent spate of attacks on its members and institutions and appealed to the federal government to intervene.

An official statement by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India (CBCI) said it had received news of four attacks in the past one month, including one on a church in the southern state of Karnataka last Sunday and an attack on a priest in Chattisgarh state in January.

“We unequivocally condemn the attacks ... We thought the attacks on Church institutions and its personnel had become a thing of the past,” Archbishop Oswald Gracias, secretary general of the CBCI, said in the statement.

“We urge the competent authorities to nab the culprits immediately and take lawful action against them,” Gracias said.

The CBCI said it would take up the matter with Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and Home Minister Lal Krishna Advani.

“We feel embarrassed when acts of intolerance such as these appear to raise their head again and when the country gets a bad name internationally,” Archbishop Vincent Concessao, vice-president of the CBCI said.

Christians account for just two percent of the population of overwhelmingly Hindu India.—AFP