Hundreds of Muslims torched and looted Christian homes in Gojra, Pakistan, burning to death eight Christians.
Hundreds of armed Muslims set alight and looted dozens of Christian homes in Gojra town in Pakistan last week, after unsubstantiated rumours that a copy of the Koran had been desecrated by a Christian. Local officials said the rumours which led to the killing were false. Shahbaz Bhatti, the Minister for Minorities, said that a Christian neighbourhood had been attacked by a mob ‘misled by Muslim extremists’.
(See the BBC News report)
The minister told a news conference on Monday:
‘Allegations of desecration of the Holy Koran, which were used as an excuse by banned (Islamist) groups to foment such a big scale of violence, were baseless and without grounds.’
The mob opened fire indiscriminately, threw petrol bombs and looted houses as thousands of frightened Christians ran for safety. According to the official sources, eight people were killed, including four women and a child. Two men died later of gunshot wounds. Local residents however say that the casualties were much higher; one claimed that the number of dead could be in the dozens as many bodies were still buried under the rubble.
Rafiq Masih, a resident of the predominantly Christian colony, said:
‘They were shouting anti-Christian slogans and attacked our houses. We kept begging for protection, but police did not take action.’
‘It was like hell. Nobody was coming to help us,’ said Atique Masih, a 23-year-old Christian who was shot in his right leg.
Other residents said that police stood aside while the mob went on the rampage. Mr Bhatti also accused the police of ignoring his previous appeals to provide protection to Christians after the government received an intelligence report suggesting that Muslim militants were switching from suicide bombings to inciting sectarian strife in the country.
According to Rana Sanaullah, Punjab’s law minister, Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan, an outlawed pro-Taliban Sunni Muslim sectarian group, and its al Qaeda-linked offshoot, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, were suspected of orchestrating the attack. He said ‘masked men armed with explosives’ had come from the nearby district of Jhang, birthplace of both groups, to incite the anti-Christian rioting in Gojra.
Pakistani missionary schools closed on Monday for three days to mourn the deaths. Bishop Sadiq Daniel, head of the Church of Pakistan diocese in Karachi and south-western Baluchistan province, said:
‘Christian schools will remain closed for three days from today to mourn the death of innocent people in Gojra.’
Sarim Burney, a senior official of Ansar Burney Trust, which was established in 1980 in the Pakistani port city of Karachi to further human rights in the country, said:
‘A few years back in a similar case [to Gojra] in the central district of Karachi some people said they had found a Koran in the gutter and they blamed the Christian population in the neighbourhood. Instead of registering a case with the police, they forced the Christians to leave the area’.
(See Asia Times commentary)
Minorities, including Christians, account for roughly four percent of Pakistan’s 170 million population. Gojra, a small city about 220 miles southwest of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, has a Christian population of about 50,000.
Christians in the region face intimidation because of discriminatory blasphemy laws, including one that carries the death penalty for defiling the Koran and images of the Prophet Muhammad. The law is often misused to settle personal scores, The Times reports.
In May 2007, Christians in the north-west of the country sought government protection following threats of bomb attacks if they did not become Muslims.
Please pray for Christians in Pakistan as they are going through very difficult times.
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