Elderly missionary priest denied visa extension, given expulsion order
New Delhi (AsiaNews/Ucan) - A Dutch missionary who has worked for decades in India, much of that time in the troubled Jammu and Kashmir states, has been ordered to leave the country immediately.
During the last week of April, Mill Hill missionary Fr. Jim Borst received a notice from the Jammu and Kashmir's Criminal Investigation Department telling him to leave India within 10 days, local Church officials said.
The Catholic priest began working in Jammu and Kashmir, India's only Muslim-majority state, in 1963. In 1975 he left for Bihar, a state in eastern India, where he worked until he returned to Jammu and Kashmir in 1993.
The Jammu-Srinagar diocese covers the entire state. Jammu, 585 km north of New Delhi, is the state's winter capital and Srinagar, some 295 km further north, is its summer capital.
Church officials in Jammu and Kashmir said the priest's visa expired in November but that he had applied for its extension on time. However, the office that processes visas refused to extend his.
Father Thomas Anjanickal, vicar general of neighboring Shimla-Chandigarh diocese, said Church officials are making "every effort" to keep Father Borst in Jammu and Kashmir. The vicar general is coordinating efforts to get the visa extended. Father Borst was unavailable for comment.
The Dutch missionary is a popular person in Jammu and Kashmir. However, problems started in May 2003, after a national daily named him among those it said were leading the conversion of Muslims to Christianity.
The conversion charge is unfounded, Church officials say, pointing out that there are only 15,000 Christians in the state's population of 10 million. Most of the Christians are Catholics.
Father Mathew Kuzhikkatil of Srinagar parish said that state Chief Minister Mufti Mohammed Sayyed assured Father Borst of all assistance when the missioner called on him "sometime back."
Father Borst joined the Mill Hill missionaries in 1945, soon after World War II ended. He was ordained in 1957 in London, where his society was founded in 1886 as St. Joseph's Society for Foreign Missions.
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