I have read "Shame at Sanjan” (Parsiana, March 7, 2010) and am shocked that the well-known Meher Master-Moos of Zoroastrian College was brutally attacked and beaten in her own home along with a Russian guest, Herbad Mikhail Chistyakov, whose religion was insulted by the attackers who tore off his sudreh. The cowardly mafia style attack on two innocent Zarthoshtis actively carried out by the Bombay Parsi Punchayet (BPP) chairman Dinshaw Mehta and one-time chief accountant Sohrab Katpitia of the Surat Parsi Panchayat (SPP), was disgusting. The issue could have been settled in a respectable and decent way instead of committing violent attacks and behaving like goons. How can civilized Parsis accept such megalomaniacs in their Punchayet when they go about threatening and assaulting members of their own community? It is a shame that though Mehta and Katpitia indulged in criminal activities, they managed to escape prosecution.
It is utterly immoral and disgusting that a mob, comprising Parsis and Muslims (the Muslims led by Katpitia were present with him) shamelessly attempted to remove the Russian gentleman’s trousers to check whether he had been circumcised or not. Is Katpitia employed and paid to attack, abuse, humiliate and take off trousers of people the trustees do not like? This evil plan was most probably aimed by the fanatics to inflict punishment on Chistyakov had he been identified as a Muslim converted to Zoroastrianism.
The well planned dastardly act of aggression in Sanjan was meant to create terror and fear in the minds and hearts of Master-Moos, Chistyakov and the priests who performed the navar ceremony, so that they would surrender to the dictates of the BPP and vada dasturs. It is also a warning to the Parsi community that for those who disobey or disagree with the trustees or high priests and break laws made by them — such as no conversion, no right to enter in agiary and worship for women married to non-Parsis, no navjotes of children of mixed marriages, etc — then the BPP trustees will let loose fanatics to impose severe and violent punishments on the so-called transgressors.
FIROZ J. PAJNIGAR
Middlesex, UK
firozpaj@yahoo.co.uk