I awoke to news of different kinds of violence.
Three serial bomb blasts in Mumbai , yesterday July 13th and a news report of an innocent Pastor and his wife being beaten up and persecuted for the sake of Christ, in the western part of my state.
In the evening I had to stand up to verbal resistance from Jags who is our church helper. He is a good man but suffers bad moods . I try to overlook this as he does a lot of good.
All this disturbed me quite a bit but along came Milka (Pastor 's daughter) who wanted my help with her English assignments, letter writing and a news report. That eased my mind.
She told me something which really amused me. Two days ago I helped her with another English assignment. Her teacher was so pleased with it that she dictated it to the entire class to note down. Har-har!
Coming back to what I was writing about .The devil is not at rest my friends. He is assaulting the earth in many forms be it terrorism, angry blood thirsty mobs or a subordinate whom you have to deal with everyday.
The Bible gives a very accurate account to today' s world .
1But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money,proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, 4treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. 2 Timothy 3;1-5
Read these 2 news reports. The first one is from the BBC
Three near-simultaneous explosions have shaken India's commercial capital
Mumbai (Bombay), police say,
Twenty-one people were killed and 113 injured, said Maharashtra state's Chief Minister, Prithviraj Chavan
He called the explosions, during Mumbai's busy evening rush-hour, "a co-ordinated attack by terrorists"
One explosion was reported in the Zaveri Bazaar, another in the Opera House business district and a third in Dadar district in the city centre.Police sources were reported as saying the explosions were caused by home-made bombs.
The attacks are the deadliest in Mumbai since November 2008 when 10 gunmen launched a three-day co-ordinated raid in which 166 people were killed
At the scene
Zubair Ahmed
BBC News, Mumbai
--------------
Dadar is one of the old areas of Mumbai, in the middle of the city. The blast here happened in a very crowded area with lots of shops and residential buildings.
The blast here was not powerful. Police have said the explosion in Zaveri Bazaar was stronger.Police say the timing of the blast - 1900 - is significant. This was the height of the evening rush hour - it was designed to cause maximum panic and casualties.
One person asked why Mumbai is always the target of attacks.
However, many of the people gathered here now are merely onlookers curious to see what has happened. People have come from nearby areas to see what is going on.
There is no evidence of real panic here
But in other parts of the city, the story is grimmer. There is panic and people are rushing back home.
Anger and curiosity in Mumbai
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh denounced the bombings and appealed to Mumbai residents "to remain calm and show a united face".
US President Barack Obama strongly condemned the "outrageous" attacks, and offered "support to India's efforts to bring the perpetrators of these terrible crimes to justice".
High alert
The latest explosions hit the city as workers were making their way home.
The first struck the Zaveri Bazaar at 1854 (1324 GMT), tearing through the famed jewellery market, according to police. A minute later, a second blast hit the busy business district of Opera House, in the south of the city. At 1905, the third bomb exploded in the Dadar area of central Mumbai.
Because the explosions occurred within minutes of each other, "we infer that this was a co-ordinated attack by terrorists", Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram told reporters.
Mumbai had been put on a state of high alert and a commando team was standing by, he said. Delhi, the capital, Calcutta and several other cities have also been put on alert.
Forensics teams have been sent from Delhi and Hyderabad to examine the explosion sites.
The majority of Mumbai's people live in slums, and millions live on the streets. This cannot make for a very happy place and the city's 'resilient spirit' has now become the cruellest Indian cliche
Soutik Biswas
BBC News, Delhi
------------------
The authorities have not yet said who they believe might be behind the explosions and no group has said it carried them out.
In Zaveri Bazaar, witnesses described a motorcycle exploding next to a jewellery shop. Mumbai Police Commissioner Arup Patnaik said a bomb had been left in an abandoned umbrella.
Photographer Rutavi Mehta told the BBC he was shopping nearby and heard the explosion. He grabbed his camera and ran to the scene.
"I took a couple of photographs. I think they might be too graphic for broadcast," he said.
"Bodies and limbs were strewn everywhere. People were crying and screaming. The area was packed with shoppers at the time of the blast. A few offered assistance to the blood-soaked victims, while others looked on in a state of shock," he said.
"It was totally chaos. There were pools of blood everywhere."
The second and most powerful blast was in the nearby Opera House district. Local media said it was planted inside the two-storey Prasad Chamber building.
Mumbai has been targeted many times in recent years, most notably in 2008 In the central Dadar district, the bomb tore apart a taxi that was parked next to a bus stop, witnesses told the BBC. It was unclear whether the explosives were planted inside the vehicle or in a nearby electricity meter box.
"I heard a loud explosion. And then I saw people with serious injuries lying in pools of blood," another person told the Times of India.
An unexploded bomb was also reportedly been found in Dadar.
The choice of locations makes it clear that the blasts were intended to cause maximum casualties, says the BBC's Soutik Biswas in Delhi.
But footage of one of the blast sites - a ripped-off cover of a bus shelter and a car with its glass shattered - points to a medium-level and possibly crude explosion, adds our correspondent.
According to some reports, the blasts came on the birthday of Mohammad Ajmal Amir Qasab, the sole surviving gunman from the 2008 attacks. But court records show his birthday to be in September.
Those attacks, which targeted two high-end hotels, a busy train station, a Jewish centre and other sites frequented by foreigners, were blamed on the Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group.
Pakistan was quick to condemn the latest explosions, in a statement issued by the foreign ministry.
Peace talks between Pakistan and India have only recently resumed since they were broken off after the 2008 attacks.
Mumbai has been targeted many times in recent years.
As well as the 2008 attacks, co-ordinated blasts on seven of the city's trains on 11 July 2006 caused massive loss of life. More than 180 people were killed and hundreds wounded in those bombings, which were blamed on Islamist militants.
The city suffered four bomb attacks during 2003, including twin blasts on 25 August 2003 which killed 52 people.
In 1993, 257 people were killed and 700 injured in a series of 12 bomb blasts across the city. The attacks were allegedly ordered by the Muslim-dominated underworld in retaliation for Hindu-Muslim riots.
July 13, 2011:
Pastor, Wife Beaten in Uttar Pradesh
On 3 July, an angry mob accused Pastor John C.V Samuel from Assembly of
God's Church (AGC) of forceful conversion, beat him up and his wife in
Manpuri, Uttar Pradesh
The incident took place when Pastor Samuel, his wife and some believers went
to attend the burial service of Anil Saxena, who attended Pastor Samuel's
church for the past two years. Saxena committed suicide on Saturday night
after he had an argument with his father, reported our correspondent.
The angry mob suddenly rushed on the pastor and his wife, mercilessly beat
them up and falsely accused them of forceful conversion and of being the
cause of Saxena's death.
Saxena's wife intervened and told the mob that they went to the church by
their own free will and nobody has forced them.
The pastor's wife called the police by phone. The police arrived at the
scene and rescued the couple from the angry mob and took them to the
Pushpanjali Hospital, Agra where they were admitted.
Area Christian leaders submitted a police complaint but no actions have been
taken at press time.
Kindly pray for Pastor Samuel and his family and for peace in the area
An Appeal to write to Authorities
As concerned people, kindly write to the Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
appealing to them to safe guard the rights of the minority communities and
to give protection to churches against attacks and to take immediate action
against the perpetrators of violence.
Kumari Mayawati
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh
(O) Tel: (522) 2239296
(O) Fax: (522) 2239234
(R) Tel: (522) 221122
(R) Fax: (522) 220550
Issued By:
Rev. Dr. Richard Howell,
General Secretary
Evangelical Fellowship of India
New Delhi, India
Evangelical Fellowship of India (established 1951) is a charter member of
World Evangelical Alliance, an accredited NGO with the Economic and Social
Council of the United Nations
Please pray for me.
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