By Shakir Husain
NEW DELHI, Dec 28 (NNN-Bernama) — The bank accounts of the late Nobel Peace Prize winner Mother Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity have been frozen in India over foreign funding.
The Roman Catholic organisation’s renewal application under the Foreign Contribution (Regulation) Act (FCRA) was rejected on December 25 for not meeting eligibility conditions, according to the federal Home Ministry.
“No request / revision application has been received from Missionaries of Charity (MoC) for review of this refusal of renewal,” the ministry said in a statement on Monday.
However, the ministry said it did not freeze any accounts of the MoC with State Bank of India (SBI), a public sector bank.
“State Bank of India has informed that MoC itself sent a request to SBI to freeze its accounts,” the Home Ministry said.
The Missionaries of Charity is based in West Bengal state’s capital Kolkata and known for its work in the city’s vast slums.
“Their 22,000 patients and employees have been left without food and medicines,” West Bengal chief minister Mamata Banerjee said in a tweet.
“While the law is paramount, humanitarian efforts must not be compromised,” she said.
The religious order was set up in 1950 by Skopje-born Mother Teresa, who died in Kolkata in 1997 and was given a state funeral.
It was investigated by the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government over alleged child adoption trade in 2018.
Earlier this month, authorities in the BJP-ruled western state of Gujarat said they were investigating whether the Missionaries of Charity forced girls in a shelter home to wear a cross and read the Bible.
The BJP and its affiliated groups, collectively known as the “Sangh Parivar”, often make allegations of “forced conversion” at Christian-run institutions.
Christians form about two per cent of India’s 1.38 billion population.
Christmas celebrations were disrupted in a number of places in the country by Sangh vigilante mobs.
Critics accuse them of promoting “Hindutva” (Hindu supremacy) and violence against minority communities, including Muslims.
— NNN-BERNAMA
