By Jawad Mazhar, BosNewsLife Special Correspondent reporting from Pakistan
with additional reporting by BosNewsLife’s Stefan J. Bos
RAWALPINDI, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife)– Pakistan’s military and the militant Taliban group clashed in the country’s strategic Swat Valley Wednesday, May 6, adding to fears among minority Christians and forcing thousands of civilians to flee the area.
Some 40,000 people reportedly fled the city of Mingora in northwestern Pakistan and officials said a further half a million others were expected to leave as well. Wednesday’s clashes came shortly after the Taliban threatened to expand Sharia, or Muslim law, far beyond Swat Valley and reports of massive Muslim attacks against minority Christians, including murder and rape.
Since late April, militants of the Taliban group executed at least two residents in a Christian neighborhood while one child died during a crackdown on believers who protested against the Talibanization of Pakistan, local Christians and rights investigators confirmed to BosNewsLife.
United States-based International Christian Concern (ICC), which investigates cases of persecution, said the incidents happened April 21, in Taseer Town near the city of Karachi, where Christians protested against pro-Taliban messages “chalked onto the walls of two churches.”
Earlier, on the outskirts of Sargodha, a key city in Punjab province, a Christian young man was shot and killed and another Christian boy sexually molested by at least one suspected militant, although his links to the Taliban could not be established, family sources said.
MANY BULLETS
On April 19, Adeel Masih, 20, was “sprayed with bullets” after returning home from work in Marrium Town near Sargodha, and died of his injuries at a local hospital, said his father Iqbal Masih. At the same time a suspected Muslim militant, identified only as Israar, allegedly raped a 10-year-old Christian boy, Waseem Sabir, in a field of Marrium Towm, residents said.
The man apparently managed to flee, but police promised to investigate both cases. Elsewhere, a nine-year-old Pakistani Christian girl was gang-raped and murdered on April 9, Christian right investigators said. Nisha Javid was reportedly abducted while walking near her home in Punjab’s Essangri village. Her battered body was found two days later in a canal, but local Christians say police has been reluctant to detain suspects. Another Christian girl in her early teens was gang raped by Muslim men twice in as many months here in the village of Gumhe-k-Lidhur near Punjab’s main city of Lahore, according to local residents.
Ambreen Munir 13, a daughter of an impoverished Christian laborer and a house wife, was allegedly kidnapped twice since February by Muslim youth, who took her to a lonely neighborhood where they apparently raped her for several hours. It came on the heels of another incident in the village of Chak # 39 NB where impoverished Christian carpenter Tariq Masih 19 was murdered because of his relationship with a 17-year-old Muslim girl, his maternal uncle, Allah Ditta said.
Churches and rights investigators have accused the Taliban of encouraging its militants and other Muslims to attack Christians, including minors, in several parts of the country. In one of the latest incidents, some 400 angry Muslims armed with clubs, iron rods and firearms attacked homes of Christians and accused five Christian villagers of desecrating the Koran, seen as holy by Muslims, villagers said.
ISLAMIC EXTREMISM
Eyewitnesses told BosNewsLife the May 1 incident happened in the village of Harappa in a remote part of Punjab, considered a hot-bed for Islamic extremism. The violence broke out after police detained a Christian man Ashfaq Gill April 28 on suspicion of “tearing and desecrating” the Koran, Christian villagers said.
Soon after, Harappa police detained four other Christians, identified as Naseer Gill Madhauv, Imran Gill Naseer, Harris John Emmanuel Hero, Israar Wilson Inyat-Ullah and Ghulam Freed, under Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy legislation, Christians said. Villagers went on saying that police also accused all five Christians of bursting into the Girls High School of Harappa and “desecrating the Book of Koran” there during theft.
However the ‘All Pakistan Minorities Alliance’, a major advocacy and political group, denied wrongdoing saying all five detained Christians are its political workers in the area.
Rights groups have urged the government to investigate these incidents and arrest those responsible, amid allegations of reluctance among police to detain suspects. Federal Minister for Minorities and head of APMA Shahbaz Bhatti told BosNewsLife he would “make sure that culprits responsible for this showdown are booked and justice is served” including to the five Christians against whom blasphemy charges have been leveled.
Yet, with the Taliban gaining ground in Pakistan, extremism is spreading and Christians are among minorities with little influence in this predominantly Islamic nation, rights groups warned.
What the reporter wants to convey here by reporting “massive Muslim attacks against minority Christians”. Is he trying to tell outer world that there is no Taliban, there are only muslims who are attacking christians minority in the same way as Hidus did wiht muslim minority in the past in Gujrat. This is an example of wrong generalisation, a single act of harasment taken by a single person relating to a specific community or religion may involve personal intentions. It does’t mean that the whole community is involved in it. Pakistani muslims always kept christians as their religeous relatives. However, there may be indian secret agents who are posing like taliban and trying to disrupt the sitution by doing such acts. Its 20th century and people are still unaware of bad war games. Such incidents could not give benefit niether to Taliban or Pakistan, only the enemies of both of these could get.
One other thing to mention here, this case must be deal with the law enforcement agencies properly so that people responsible for this could be captured. The christian community must show calm. They have their full legal rights being Pakistani citizens to take action legally.
Dear Gabriel,
Thanks for your comments. BosNewsLife is not speaking of “THE Muslims” as that would be indeed a generalisation. I agree with you on that issue. However there have been massive Muslim attacks against Christians involving for instance a mob of hundreds of people. Unfortunately Christians not always have the possibility to take legal actions, especially in rural areas and regions such as the Swat Valley.
Best regards,
Stefan J. Bos, BosNewsLife
Mr Gabriel
Ever since the Christians presence in Pakistan they haven’t had one bit of human right, let alone any other. Muslims seems to have this great commission of converting by raping the young and innocent, its only over recent few years that the media is actually reporting the issue. I think you need to have a look at how many cases are reported on this website alone; to come to a conclusion of Muslim’s treatment of Christians in Pakistan. The other thing, Christians are showing calm or else they will be burning shops and causing havok.
Khuram
why christians are still there? why they do not go to India?