However, he admitted that ``some of them might have mingled in the rally organised by the HJM in Ahwa on December 25''.

Pandya also sought to play down Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's statement in Bangalore yesterday that he would be visiting Dangs soon. The Prime Minister, said Pandya, was coming to get first-hand information about the incidents. His visit would not only help restore peace and instil confidence among Christians of the region but would also help bring out the facts about the violence, Pandya added.

Incidentally, the State Government had been saying all along that the incidents inDangs were being ``blown out of proportion''.

Seeking to support this stand, the Minister said not a single person had lost his life in the violence, nor had anyone been was reported missing, and that the damages to the private properties were estimated at ``only'' Rs 4 lakh.

In a late-night development, meanwhile, Manoj Shashidhar was appointed DSP, Dangs.

ENS adds from Surat: No untoward incident was reported from any part of Dangs district during the past 24 hours. On Sunday, there had been reports of prayer meetings being disrupted.

The police, who described the situation as peaceful, have arrested 16 people in different cases of violence in the district; they had all been named in cases reported before December 31.

Former prime minister H D Deve Gowda, Janata Dal president Sharad Yadav, and former Union minister and Member of Parliament Ram Vilas Paswan are visiting the trouble-torn district on January 5. The team is also expected to visit Limbayat area of Surat, where three auto-rickshaws anda Maruti car kept in the compound of Seventh-Day Adventist Telugu Church were damaged by a group of miscreants last week.

They will also visit Amod, where communal violence had erupted recently, during their three-day visit to Gujarat.