Updated on Monday, September 15, 2008, 00:00 IST

Even as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today spoke to Karnataka Governor Rameshwar Thakur and Chief Minister B S Yeddyurappa about attacks on churches in the state, Congress blamed the Sangh Parivar for the assaults and said they were "state-sponsored".

"Sangh Parivar appears to have launched a national mission to attack and demolish the churches. Orissa is a glaring example of the atrocities being unleashed by the Sangh Parivar...The atrocities are nothing but communal terrorism", Congress media department chairman M Veerappa Moily said in a statement here.

Condemning the attacks in Karnataka as "state-sponsored communal terrorism", he said, "The Karnataka Home Minister himself ordered for the release of the culprits who committed this heinous crime".

Demanding immediate action from the state government on the issue, the party said it will have no option but to approach the Centre for appropriate action if the state government failed to do anything about it.

Moily alleged that the attacks on churches and places of worship in Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Chickmaglur districts of Karnataka were carried out by Sangh Parivar outfits.

Bureau Report