The tale of man who was misunderstood, victimized, attacked, persecuted and abandoned by his own in times of trouble.

Prof. Joseph is a persecuted victim. He was misunderstood. He was treated like a wretched terrorist. He was abandoned by his Church and his fellowmen. His son was tortured as if he were a criminal too.

A house of justice rejected his bail plea with damaging comments perhaps under the premise that he had committed a serious crime.

The Islamist radicals told a lie to their community so as to incite them, make them feel insecure and to convey the message that their community is under challenge by the Christians. They alleged that the professor's actions was part of the Christian conspiracy.

The college, University and the government went in for knee jerk reaction and punished him without allowing him to explain or trying to understand him.

What did the professor do?

The man prepared a question paper for his handful beloved students in an internal college examination.

One of the questions was for punctuation. The passage chosen was from a narration of the screenplay of the award winning movie 'Garshom' by the noted Muslim film maker P. T. Kunjumohammed.

It is about a (supposedly Muslim) lunatic who has an imaginary conversation with God. He talks to God and the answers are given by himself.

The professor chose this passage from the University book.

The only thing he did was to give a name to the Muslim character. Probably the most common of the Muslim names, 'Mohammed' must have come to his mind. He gave the character that name.

There is no prophet Muhammed in the passage.

There is no blasphemy.

All the allegations of blasphemy are unfounded. They were created by the Islamists who wanted to create trouble. They have been creating trouble for several months.

‘Blasphemy’ is no crime under the Indian law. There are laws against acts or words meant to incite hatred against religions, communities etc.

For any crime to be, there must be an intention. He did not seem to have an intention to foment ill feelings against other religions or incite violence. He has never been alleged to have been involved with any such activity or organization. He was a simple man pre-occupied with his job. He merely quoted from the text.

Some say he was foolish (foolishness is no crime either ) for using the name Mohammed. If this be so, we have to stop using most Hindu names like Ram, Krishna or Radha. School text books have passages like 'Rama killed the snake' and 'The snake was killed by Rama'. These cannot be branded as blasphemy or religious hate crime. The professor may have acted within his academic freedom,within his private group of students and that too in an internal examination.

Civil society cannot agree that every reference to a Mary or Joseph is to the parents of Jesus. Citizens cannot riot because someone mentions the name Ram. No one has the right to riot or to chop off people's hands because of some reference or mention.

The professor has not stood trial and he has not been convicted. However people have been condemning him even before his case has come up for trial. He has been suspended from his job by the Catholic college to save their face. They bowed to political pressure.

Some muslim leaders have been talking of giving him forgiveness. That just reinforces the allegation that he has committed blasphemy. He need not be given any forgiveness for a crime or offence he has not committed. People must be on guard against such tricks.

The media played a very irresponsible role. They hyped up the issue but they did not tell the viewers the truth or the whole truth. None of the newspapers cared to publish the truth.

Had the leading newspapers or TV channels cared to publish or explain that there is no blasphemy and no Prophet Muhammed in the controversial passage, no protests or violence would have taken place.

The Church leaders played the ostrich. If the church had intervened and held a press conference explaining the truth, things would not have gone so far.

The Muslims would not have been incited if the truth was told. No one cared to tell the truth.

Let us hang our heads in shame because of the church leaders and the leaders of Christian organizations who have not been seen or heard on this issue.

Some good men have sent the copy of the original text and the question paper. The interview by the injured, persecuted and abandoned Christian professor is also given. He has spoken with a truly Christian spirit and forgiven his attackers.