Mahim church plans to beef up security after vandalism
Following the vandalism at a cemetery attached to St Michael’s Church in Mahim on January 7, the church committee is planning to beef up security and bring in measures to avoid such incidents in future
Mumbai: Following the vandalism at a cemetery attached to St Michael’s Church in Mahim on January 7, the church committee is planning to beef up security and bring in measures to avoid such incidents in future.
Around 18 tombstones, statues and holy crosses were vandalised by a man, who allegedly climbed the church wall to enter the graveyard.
Father Lancy Pinto, the parish priest of Mahim Church, said, “This is a more than 400-year-old church. Something like this has never happened in the history of the church. One of our committee members, who looks after matters of security, was on leave. As the committee member has come back, we are conducting various meetings to decide what steps need to be taken.”
“We have made three demands to the local police. First, increase police patrolling in the area. Second, take action against drug addicts in the area. Third, we want the police to be more vigilant during weekly local market on Wednesdays,” the parish priest said.
As a part of enhancing the security, the church will also conduct special training sessions for their in-house security team. The team will be trained on dealing with such incidents and apprehending any suspect.
“We are planning to bring in a communication system like walkie-talkies, so that our guards can communicate better. At any given point, there are six to eight security personnel on the premises, deployed at different gates. Bringing in a communication system will ensure reduced response time to any untoward incident,” Pinto added.
The parish priest also said that the priests from other churches visited Mahim church to enquire about the incident, so that they can also bring in better security measures.
“The police have been very supportive and they caught the accused in one day. The accused was also brought to the church to further investigate the incident. We do not want to overburden the police. We want to bring in community participation, wherein citizens are more vigilant and can inform and alert the police about any suspicious activities. The incident that happened on Saturday was an unfortunate incident and we will repair the damage done to the graves,” he said.
A 22-year-old man was arrested by the police on Sunday. The accused was identified as Dawood Ibrahim Mohammd Ansari of Kalamboli area of Navi Mumbai.
The archdiocese of Bombay, an apex body of Roman Catholic churches in Mumbai, had issued a press statement on Saturday saying “it strictly did not wish to give the incident communal overtones”.
Dolphy D’souza, President of The Bombay Catholic Sabha, said, “We highly appreciate the Mumbai Police for apprehending the accused in just one day. But we also want the police to go to the root cause of the issue. We want to know what was the motive behind this vandalism. Why would someone choose St Michael’s Church to vandalise? It is an important pilgrimage and landmark of the city.”