E/CN.4/2005/61/Add.1 Page 34 130. By letter dated 31 December 2004, the Government of India informed the Special Rapporteur that, with respect to the last allegation in the communication dated 15 March 2004, inquiries had revealed that since March 2003 the Crime Branch of Ahmedabad city had been investigating a number of cases where a number of accused had been arrested and witnesses examined. These cases were serious in nature and triggered the provisions of various sections of relevant legislation, including the Arms Acts and the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA). 131. According to the Government’s response, during the course of the investigations, a number of people were summoned and their statements recorded as being witnesses of the incidents. They were neither detained nor threatened by any personnel of the Crime Branch. The accused also did not have any complaint against the Crime Branch officers; it was apparent from the court records that whenever they were produced before the various magistrates/judges, no complaint was made. The Government suggested that, since the offences were serious in nature and provisions of POTA were invoked, the accused and their relatives might have made the allegations to avoid or prevent their arrests. Members of both Hindu and Muslim communities were arrested and thus the allegations of the use of POTA against Muslims were baseless. Indonesia Communications and replies received 132. On 15 March 2004, the Special Rapporteur sent a communication to the Government of Indonesia concerning allegations that under a draft bill drawn up by the Religious Affairs Ministry, interreligious marriage and interreligious adoptions would be banned. Furthermore, the bill would allegedly prohibit people from attending religious ceremonies of a different faith and ban teachings that “deviate from the main teachings of that religion”. It was also reported that the bill stipulated that places of worship could be established only with the permission of the Government. The draft had been criticized by religious leaders, who claimed it was biased against minority groups, such as animist-based faiths practised by many people in Kalimantan and Papua, and allowed the State too much interference in private religious practice. The proposed bill reportedly only recognized five religions as official religions in Indonesia. The draft bill failed to recognize Confucianism as an official religion, which seemed to contradict the 2002 presidential decree that included Lunar New Year – a Confucian religious day – as an official religious holiday. The Special Rapporteur also mentioned a series of attacks on mostly Christian villages in the Poso area of Central Sulawesi, reportedly raising fears of a return to the sectarian clashes between Muslims and Christians that afflicted Sulawesi and the neighbouring Maluku islands between 1999 and 2001. It was reported that the situation started to deteriorate in Poso following the killing of at least 10 people in the regency and in neighbouring Morowali regency on 12 October 2003. Later, a mob reportedly beat to death a 23-year-old Christian man during a protest over the fatal shooting by police of a suspect in the October attacks. In November 2003 an elderly church official and his driver were reportedly killed in Poso by unknown gunmen. Between 26 November and 30 November 2003, two separate attacks left four people dead in Poso. In the first attack on the village of Kilo Trans two migrants from mainly Hindu Bali were killed.