and burned churches following unsubstantiated accusations that a Christian had desecrated the Quran, considered as a holy book by followers of Islam, BosNewsLife established Tuesday, November 15.
It came amid growing concern about Muslim extremism Tuesday, November 15, when in an unrelated incident a car bomb tore through an outlet of US fast food chain KFC in Pakistan’s largest city Karachi, killing three people and wounding several others, police said.
In the country’s worst outbreak of anti-Christian violence since gunmen attacked a church on Christmas Day, 2002, a mob destroyed the Roman Catholic, Salvation Army and United Presbyterian churches in Sangla Hill village.
GAMBLING GAME
Nobody was injured in Saturday’s arson attacks on churches, as well as attacks on other sites including a school, a priest’s home and a nuns’ hostel in the remote village of Sangla Hill, police said.
Church officials claimed the unprovoked attacks began when Christian Yousaf Masih won a gambling game with a Muslim group in a local stadium. Soon after he left, a fire broke out in the Islamic library next to the stadium, and several books caught fire, including the Koran.
The Muslim men who lost the gambling accused Yousaf Masih of starting the fire and announcements were made in local mosques urging Muslims to attack Christians, several sources said. "Those who played any role in these attacks will not go unpunished," police official Tahir Alam warned.
HUNDREDS FLEE
About 80 percent of the 1,000 Christians living in the area have fled their homes, said Shahbaz Bhatti, a Christian who heads the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), which promotes minority rights in mostly Muslim Pakistan, BosNewsLife learned. "They have gone to the homes of their relatives to save their lives," Bhatti said from Sangla Hill, about 130 kilometers (80 miles) northeast of the city of Lahore.
The APMA declared seven days of mourning, and Christian schools throughout Pakistan were expected to go on strike on November 17, to the attacks on Christians in Sangla Hill. Hindu, Sikh and Muslim leaders have also joined church leaders in condemning the outbreak of violence amid allegations that police forces did not do enough to stop the riots.
Although local Christian leaders quickly alerted police, fearing attacks on their churches and homes, "I say with sorrow that police took no measures for their safely," APMA official Bhatti said. Besides attacking churches, Bhatti claimed that an angry Muslim mob also burned about 500 copies of the Bible and harassed a group of nuns, "although they didn’t hurt them."
WORSHIP SERVICE
Scores of Christians, mostly people from neighboring villages who came to Sangla Hill after hearing of the unrest, held a Sunday service on a road outside one of the burned churches, Batti said. He stressed they will not remove the ashes of the burned Bibles until senior government officials visit the village to see the destruction.
Christians and other minorities comprise roughly 3 percent of Pakistan’s 150 million-plus population. There has been increased concern among human rights activists about attacks on Churches and Christian clergy by Islamic extremists railing against Western influence in Pakistan.
In May, thousands of Pakistanis joined angry street protests earlier over the alleged desecration of the Quran by interrogators at a US military prison in Guantanamo, Bay, Cuba. Desecration of the Quran carries the death penalty in Pakistan.
"BAD NEWS"
In published remarks after the arson attacks Saturday, the Catholic Archbishop of Lahore, Lawrence Saldanha, said that "in the wake of the [recent] earthquake … this lawlessness is bad news for the country. The situation calls for serious action on the part of everybody concerned with the well being of the country."
He reportedly said that Pakistan’s blasphemy laws are "the main sources and tools for creating social, sectarian and inter-religious disharmony. It is negligence on the part of the ministries responsible, who allow the misuse [of the blasphemy laws] at such a large scale, causing a huge amount of injustice."
Human rights watchers say Saturday’s violence bared the hallmarks of a similar attack in February 6, 1997 when Shantinagar, a Christian village, was attacked by over 30,000 militant Muslims. At least 75 per cent of the village was destroyed, including 16 churches, over 300 houses and three hostels and schools, said advocacy group Christian Solidarity Worldwide (CSW).
