Christian Groups have condemned the attack on Varanasi Temple, calling it sinful to kill innocent people and sharpen the communal divide.

In a statement issued on 8 March 2006, Dr Joseph D'Souza, President of the All India Christian Council and Dr John Dayal, Secretary General, All India Christian Council, denounced the cowardly bomb attack on worshippers and train passengers in Varanasi on 7 March 2006.

They said innocent blood of children, women and men had been shed in vain, as such attacks advanced no political cause, nor did that serve any group of people. “What the attacks do achieve is to inflict suffering on the common people and set back the national peace and reconciliation processes,” they said.

Such violence also served the purpose of fundamentalist and religious extremists who throve on exacerbating real and imagined divides and grievances which furthered their pernicious political and social agendas. They wanted national attention and energies diverted from development, from the fight against poverty and hunger and from the long struggle of the Dalits for human dignity.

”It is for the governments of Uttar Pradesh and the Centre to ensure safety of the people. The Christian leadership calls on all right-thinking citizens to ensure the continuance of peace and stability and to make sure that religious and political extremism  is told in no uncertain terms that it has no place in a modern, democratic, secular and republican India,” they said.

The Christian leaders said, “Our hearts go out to the survivors who are in hospital in critical condition, and to the relatives of the dead. We stand in sympathy and solidarity with the victims of such acts of terrorism.”