Kochi: The Syro-Malabar Ernakulam-Angamaly archdiocese presbyters’ council failed to meet here on Thursday as a handful of laymen prevented Cardinal Mar George Alencherry from convening the session.
The meeting was scheduled to discuss the inquiry commission report on the controversial land deals.
“I was physically prevented by a group of laymen from attending the presbyters’ council meeting. As they told me that a huge number of believers was waiting outside, I was forced to postpone the council meeting to avoid any untoward incidents and a tense situation. I regret the inconvenience caused,” said Cardinal Alencherry in a note to the members of the presbyters’ council.
The meeting was expected to obtain responses from the cardinal, procurator Fr. Joshy Puthuva and Mon Sebastian Vadakkumpadan, vicar-general, who have been named in the report, before it is sent to the Holy See.
However, responding to mediapersons, a section of priests denied the allegations that the cardinal was forcibly prevented by a group of believers.
The members of laity representing various organisations in the Church were present at the meeting venue, who allegedly obstructed the cardinal.
As per reports, the majority of clergymen have demanded that the inquiry commission report should be discussed in the presbyters’ council only after it is debated in the pastoral meeting.
But what gave the game away was Jadhav’s comment that he heard the "Indian diplomat" shouting at his mother when the fact was that Jadhav himself was speaking to his mother and wife from behind a glass screen while India’s deputy high commissioner J.P. Singh was further separated from Jadhav’s family as he was "kept behind an additional partition that did not allow him access to the meeting as agreed".
Observers believe the Pakistani Army and its ISI spy agency are orchestrating this propaganda to bolster Pakistan’s arguments before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in the Jadhav case. Jadhav met his wife and mother in Islamabad on Christmas Day, after which India had lambasted Pakistan for "conducting the meeting in a manner which violated the letter and spirit of our understandings".
In the purported video released on Thursday, Jadhav said: "I saw fear in her (his mother’s) eyes, the Indian diplomat was shouting at my mother the moment she stepped out. I saw him shouting, yelling at her... During the meeting, it looked like my mother had been beaten and brought here on a plane."
