A “tourist from the mainland” allegedly entered a church in Meghalaya and shouted “Jai Shri Ram”, prompting a police case and condemnation from Christian bodies.

A video shows a young man in a black T-shirt purportedly entering the Church of Epiphany in Mawlynnong, East Khasi Hills, 70km from Shillong, and chanting the slogan. The church comes under the Church of North India.

A Church leader and several organisations and activists alleged an attempt to push a “majoritarian agenda” and disturb communal harmony.

The police on Friday registered an FIR against a social media user who goes by the name of Akash Sagar under “appropriate sections of the law”, an officer told The
Telegraph on Saturday.

He said the video “surfaced” on December 26. Other sources said it had been circulating on social media since early December.

The controversy comes at a time when the Supreme Court is hearing an appeal against the quashing of charges against two youths accused of chanting “Jai Shri Ram” inside a Karnataka mosque.

The Meghalaya FIR is based on a complaint lodged on Thursday by prominent Shillong-based social activist Angela Rangad.

She said she had “recently” come across videos on Facebook and Instagram by one Akash Sagar, where “he is found… desecrating the religious sanctity of the church... and in a premeditated and planned way trespassed into the altar area and shouted non-Christian slogans and mockingly sang non-Christian songs”.

She alleged “collusion with two others who appear in the video, done to create communal disharmony, insulting the minority culture and to establish a majoritarian
culture of hate”.

The Khasi Jaintia Christian Leaders’ Forum (KJCLF), a body of churches in Christian-majority Meghalaya, said the “provocative and
perverse act” had “enraged the local communities and Christians at large in the
region”.

It said “the location and timing of this incident and broadcast seem to suggest the advancement of an effort to create disharmony… among ethnic and religious communities by disrespect, insult, and hate solely with the intention to promote the
majoritarian agenda”.

United Christian Forum of North East India spokesperson Allen Brooks said: “…If an individual trespasses into a place of worship belonging to another faith, desecrates its sanctity, and loudly invokes the name of his/ her deity or God with the malicious intent to offend, it constitutes intimidation and a clear infringement upon the rights
of others.”

The KJCLF referred to a speech by Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a recent Christmas celebration hosted by the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of India in Delhi.

It said Modi had highlighted Christ’s teachings of “love, harmony, brotherhood” but “failed to address and control issues of hatred and divisions… in Manipur and other places in the country”.

It urged the state government, tourism industry, Christian community and religious leaders to be “more prudently stringent with the activities related to tourism and community relationships” and urged tourists visiting “our state to be respectful
and sensitive”.

Some leaders of the local non-tribal communities too condemned the act of desecration and demanded stringent action.