Five churches torched in Pakistan, Over 600 booked in 2 terror cases
violence against Christian community on rise in Pakistan
Five churches torched in Pakistan, Over 600 booked in 2 terror cases
Faisalabad: The Jaranwala police of the Faisalabad District have filed two terror cases against more than 600 people for ransacking and “torching Christians’ homes and a church building” a day ago, it emerged on Thursday. A day earlier, a violent mob of hundreds had ransacked and torched five churches while also attacking the residences of members of the Christian community and the office of the local assistant commissioner.
A Christian cemetery and the office of the local assistant commissioner were also vandalised. The incident had led the Punjab government to call in Rangers while 3,000 police personnel from various police units, including the Elite Force, had been deployed as well.
As per police and local sources, the violence erupted after some locals alleged that several desecrated pages of the Holy Quran had been found near a house at Cinema Chowk in Jaranwala, where two Christian brothers resided.
In light of the situation, the district administration has imposed Section 144 for seven days, prohibiting all kinds of assembly, except for events organised by the government.
Meanwhile, the Punjab government also ordered the formation of a high-level inquiry committee to investigate the incident, in line with directives issued by Caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq. In a statement issued late on Wednesday night, Punjab police said it had made over 100 arrests while Rangers had also been called in.
Both first information reports (FIRs), copies of which are available with Dawn.com, were filed by a sub-inspector of the Jaranwala City police station and state the time of reporting as 10am on Wednesday (August 16).
One of the criminal complaints states that a mob of 500-600, who were led by a group of people, “attacked the Christian community, ransacked people’s homes after entering them and torched Christians’ homes and the church building”.
It identified eight people as leading the mob, one of whom is affiliated with the Jamaat Ahl-e-Sunnat and another with the Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
The FIR invoked sections 7(1)(d), 7(1)(j), 7(1)(g) and 7(1)(h) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, 1997.
It also invoked sections 148, 149, 153A, 186, 295, 295A, 324, 353, 427, 436 and 452 of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).
The FIR also included sections 5 and 6 of the Punjab Sound Systems (Regulation) Act 2015.
According to the FIR, at around 9:20am, a man used the loudspeakers of Mehtab Mosque — located near the Cinema Chowk — to urge people to “gather and protest” against alleged desecration of the Holy Quran.
It states that the mob gathered outside Mehtab Mosque “armed with batons, road carts, petrol bottles and started chanting slogans”. It added that the people named above incited the mob, who was urged to stop, but it “resisted the police party” and entered the Christian community’s homes and ransacked them.
The FIR goes on to state that the mob “threw out people’s belongings from their homes and started setting them on fire”. The suspects also “entered a Catholic church, destroyed the things there, and damaged and torched its building”, it added.
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