Roving Periscope: After targeting the Hindus, Pak Islamists pounce on Christians
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Barely 48 hours after the outgoing Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif-led rickety coalition installed a caretaker government headed by a relatively unknown Baloch leader, Pakistan’s season of targeting minorities ahead of the next elections returned.
This time, the militants’ target was not the Hindus, Ahmadiyya, or the Shias, but the Christians. Their claim justifying violence against the targets, however, was the same: blasphemy.
Over a hundred people have been detained after the incidents of arson and violence, police said, as the US officially condemned the violence and asked Islamabad to investigate the “religiously motivated violence.”
A Pakistani Punjab government spokesman said a high-level probe was ordered while Interim Punjab Information Minister Amir Mir claimed it was a “well-thought-out conspiracy” and that “dozens of those who disturbed peace” had been held.
On Wednesday, a huge mob of radicalized Islamists vandalized and torched at least five churches and some buildings nearby in Jaranwala in Pakistan’s Faisalabad district following allegations of blasphemy against a Christian family.
Angry Muslims attacked a Christian man, who works as a cleaner, accusing him of making derogatory remarks against the Quran. Not only was his house demolished, but the mob also vandalized churches and other Christian settlements in the area, the media reported.
Viral videos on social media showed a frenzied mob climbing atop churches and kicking the Holy Cross, a symbol of reverence for the Christians.
Some videos also showed Muslim clerics inciting the mob to mobilize if the police failed to take action against the “blasphemers.”
A Christian leader, Akmal Bhatti, said the crowd had “torched” at least five churches and looted valuables from houses.
According to a report in Dawn, Punjab police chief Usman Anwar said they were ‘negotiating’ with the protesters and the area had been cordoned off. However, local Christians complained that the police remained mute spectators as their houses were ransacked.
The police registered a first information report (FIR) against the accused Christian man under various laws.
“There are narrow lanes (in the area) in which small two to three marla churches are located and there is one main church…they have vandalized portions of the churches,” Anwar said.
Taking to X (formerly Twitter), President Bishop of the Church of Pakistan Azad Marshall said that the Holy Bible was desecrated and Christians were tortured and harassed, after being “falsely accused of violating the Holy Quran.”
“We cry out for justice and action from law enforcement and those who dispense justice and the safety of all citizens to intervene immediately and assure us that our lives are valuable in our own homeland that has just celebrated independence and freedom,” Bishop Marshall said.
Former senator Afrasiab Khattak said, “This is condemnable. The Pakistani state has failed to provide security to the worship places of people who follow religions other than Islam. Impunity to the crimes committed in the name of religion has emboldened extremists and terrorists. Bring the culprits to book.”
