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A large mob have looted and set ablaze a Christian residential area in central Lahore, Pakistan, after a Christian man was arrested for allegedly blaspheming the prophet Muhammad.
Around 7,000 Muslim men set fire to Joseph Colony on March 9, a Christian residential area near Badami Bagh in central Lahore, Punjab Province, destroying 160 homes, 18 shops and two Christian churches, one Catholic and the other, Seventh-day Adventist.*
Despite the arrest of the alleged blasphemer, a man in his 20s, the mob came well prepared to loot and destroy, with one source saying police ran from the scene, doing nothing to control the violence and destruction.
There were no casualties in the attack as the low to middle class area had been deserted after police told Christians to leave the area on Friday.
The Supreme Court of Pakistan rejected the report submitted by Punjab police when it addressed the matter yesterday.
Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry expressed anger at the delay in legal proceedings, accusing the police of sheltering the alleged criminals involved in the attack.
Police must have had fore-knowledge of the attack or they would not have evacuated Christians the day before, Chief Justice Chaudhry said.
Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed was reported by Pakistan Today as having suggested the real motivation behind the violence was a property-related attempt to force Christians from the area.
Justice Gulzar Ahmad was reported to have said that police had played the role of a “silent spectator” and were “equally responsible for the incident”.
While local police have been roundly criticised for their response, government action at the national level has been swift.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf ordered an immediate inquiry into the attacks.
President Zardari said such acts of vandalism against Pakistani Christians and other minorities tarnished the image of the country.
The province’s Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said that the government would not spare those involved in the attack.
“These people committed a serious crime … there was no moral, legal or religious ground to indulge in such an act,” he told a local TV channel.
Zohra Yusuf, chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, criticised the provincial government in a statement, saying “it totally failed in providing protection to a minority community under siege”.
Christians in Karachi and Multan, as well as Lahore, have protested in solidarity against religion-based violence in the area and have condemning the blasphemy laws which, they say are continually abused and misused by the police and judiciary in Pakistan in the name of Islam.
Speaking the day after the attacks, Fr Emmanuel Yousaf, chairman of the National Commission of Justice and Peace of the Catholic Church in Pakistan said attacks on Christians and religious-based violence will keep occurring unless there is a political will to end them.
* Catholic News Service, a news agency owned by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, has reported different numbers, sourced out of New Dehli. The CNS report puts the mob’s size at 3,000 and said “more than 175 buildings” had been destroyed. The Record’s source has access to first-hand accounts of developments in Pakistan.