Archbishop Alan Basil de Lastic, one of India's most courageous human rights defenders, was killed in a car accident during the early hours of Wednesday 21st June in the Polish city of Krakow. The 71-year old Archbishop was on his way to Warsaw when the car in which he was travelling swerved sharply to avoid a collision with a cyclist.

There have been no reports of any conspiracy theories behind the death, despite the fact that the Archbishop had unequivocally spoken out against the government on numerous occasions for their failure to safeguard the rights and freedoms of Christians and other religious minorities.

Archbishop Alan de Lastic was born in Burma in 1929 but fled with his family to India in 1942 after the Japanese invasion. Ordained in 1958, his ministry earned him the respect both of fellow clergy and the Catholic laity, leading to his appointment in 1998 as President of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of India.

His championing of human rights causes gained him admiration not only inside the Catholic church but right across the Christian denominational spectrum and beyond. Leading a day of protest in Delhi in December 1998 against attacks against Christians, the Archbishop made it clear that he was not uniquely concerned with the suffering of his own faith community. 'We resent attacks on all minorities. It is destroying our ancient spiritual, cultural and moral heritage. We demand the government does its duty. When it fails we will act as its conscience. This is why we are here: to fight injustice against the Christian community and all communities.'

The Archbishop continued to challenge the government on this subject right up to his death. In a press conference held just two weeks ago on 9th June he condemned the recent bomb blasts at churches in Andhra Pradesh, Goa and Karnataka and the brutal murder of Catholic priest George Kuzhikandam, and asked why the authorities refused to see the pattern in these attacks, choosing instead to describe them as 'isolated criminal incidents.' Like his fellow human rights defenders John Dayal (National Convenor of the United Christian Forum for Human Rights, of which the Archbishop was President) and Joseph d'Souza (Chairman of the All India Christian Council), the Archbishop refused to accept that the government is innocent of any complicity in the ongoing violence, stating on the contrary that there appeared to be 'a definite strategy and plan at the national level' to intimidate Christians in India.

Speaking on behalf of Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW), National Director Stuart Windsor has offered his deepest condolences to India's Christian community for the loss of one of their greatest advocates in the struggle for religious intolerance in India. "It is our sincere hope", he added, "that the Archbishop's dedication to the cause of human rights will bear fruit and that the time will come soon when India's Christian community can live at peace in society."