• On July 19th at 5:00 p.m. in the southern state of Kerala, rioters belonging to the Students Federation of India smashed and destroyed vehicles, computers, office equipment, furniture, doors and windows of Christian-run educational institutions.
• Records and certificates of thousands of college students were also destroyed, and many were injured in the mayhem.
• The leftist student groups, led by Kerala’s Marxist government (of India’s ruling Pro-Communist Party), attacked the colleges because they were angry about a court ruling. This ruling did not approve the Professional College Act, which would have given the government power to regulate private college fees and admissions.
• The attackers felt the court verdict favored self-financed professional colleges run by minority communities.
• Shortly after the ruling, Communist student activists led a state-wide march on July 19th against Christian and minority colleges for their unwillingness to accept the newly proposed Act, which led to the riots.
• Furious over the court ruling, pro-communist students attacked Trivandrum Mary Martha Engineering College and Tiruvalla Pushpagiri College of Nursing, along with five other colleges.
• A group of doctors riding to Tiruvalla Pushpagiri Medical College were pulled out of a bus, along with the driver, before it was stoned. Dileep Purakkal, a press photographer, sustained a head injury in the incident requiring hospitalization.
• The Christian Ministers Council of India reported that four attackers were arrested, only to be later released on bail. With the government refusing to bring the militant assailants to justice, the safety of Christian colleges in Kerala state remains in question.
• The Global Council of Indian Christians condemned this attack as “an attempt to replace the rule of law with jungle law” by attacking private colleges. Become a Voice of the Martyr's voice in the blogosphere by becoming apart of our program. Click here to learn more.