ROME – After angry mobs of Muslims attacked a series of Christian homes and churches in Pakistan on Wednesday 16 August, the country’s Catholic bishops have announced that Sunday 20 August, will be observed as a Day of Prayer. Following the attacks in Jaranwala they have invited all Christians and people of goodwill to join the initiative in praying “for peace and harmony in our country.”
After Wednesday’s incident Archbishop Benny Travas of Karachi voiced his “shock and disbelief” in a public statement. “We have once again been confronted with open hatred and uncontrollable rage shown towards the Christian community,” he said.
The latest attack occurred on Wednesday morning, when hundreds of Muslims attacked a Christian community in Jaranwala, an industrial district of Faisalabad in Pakistan, after apparently being prompted to do so by a nearby mosque loudspeaker. The crowd looted homes and burned or damaged around 22 churches after an allegation of blasphemy was made against a young Christian man.
Several churches were set on fire by one mob, while another targeted private homes, setting them alight and breaking windows.
Wednesday’s attack happened after pages torn from the Quran were claimed to have been discovered with allegedly blasphemous content written on them. Those pages were then taken to a local religious leader, who reportedly told Muslims to protest and demanded that those responsible be arrested.
Angry protesters then went on their violent rampage. Due to the scale of the violence, government officials deployed additional police forces and sent in the army to help restore order. Several locals reported calling the police for help as the attack was unfolding, with no response.
According to the bishops, so far 128 people have been arrested in connection with Wednesday’s attack, including two people considered to bear primary responsibility for the destruction.
The Punjab government has announced the establishment of a committee to investigate the incident, and local authorities have pledged to rebuild all churches and homes that were destroyed.
However, for Pakistan’s beleaguered Christian community, those promises must go beyond words and translate into concrete action.
In his statement, Travas said the allegations of blasphemy have “yet to be determined” and insisted that as the leader of the Catholic community in Karachi, “I just cannot comprehend how my people would show disrespect to any religion or to any religious books.”
“We, as a Christian community, have time and again displayed our fidelity to the nation of Pakistan, yet incidents like the burning of Christian homes in Gojra, Shantinagar, Joseph Colony, and now Jaranwala, show that we are in reality second-class citizens who can be terrorized and frightened at will,” he said.
Pointing to the statements of outrage by various politicians and national leaders, Travas said, “Once again, we have the same old condemnation and visits by the politicians and other government officials expressing their solidarity with the Christian community and promises that ‘justice will be done,’ but in reality, nothing materializes, and all is forgotten.”
He called on the government to show true solidarity with Pakistan’s Christian community “in this hour of grief” through clear and firm actions against all those responsible for “taking the law into their own hands.”
“We also call for a high-level investigation of the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran, as past incidents have shown that there have been other hidden motives behind such allegations,” he said.
On Friday, Travas led a peaceful protest of the Jaranwala attacks outside the Karachi Press Club, and a similar protest was held in Hyderabad, which was organized by the bishops’ Commission for Interfaith Dialogue, with demonstrators speaking and holding banners condemning the violence.
Archbishop Joseph Arshad of Islamabad, president of the Pakistan Catholic Bishops’ Conference, visited the site of the carnage in Jaranwala Thursday along with Bishop Yousaf Sohan of Multan, to pray and comfort those whose homes were destroyed.
Various Muslim leaders have visited the site and voiced their sympathy and solidarity with the Christian community.
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