Alleged blasphemy sparks violent attack by Muslim mob on Pakistani Christians

Police in central Pakistan said on Saturday that hundreds of Muslims violently attacked a minority Christian settlement following allegations of blasphemy, leaving several injured.

The attack took place in the town of Sargodha in the country's most populous province of Punjab.

Witnesses and minority rights advocates said protesters ransacked and burned the home and a small shoe factory of a 70-year-old Christian, whom they accused of desecrating the holy book of Islam, the Koran. He was seriously beaten and injured, his relatives reported.

A police statement said its forces responded quickly to the crisis and rescued at least 10 Christians and brought them to safety before dispersing the crowd. Several of those rescued were injured and were being treated at a local hospital.

The police statement said that clashes with angry demonstrators also left 10 members of the security forces injured. He adds that the deployment of hundreds of additional units in and around the Christian settlement has helped defuse religious tensions.

Senior provincial police officers reported the detention of around 20 suspects in connection with the mob attack, promising more arrests in the ongoing crackdown. They said an investigation into the blasphemy allegations was underway.

Violent collective attacks against religious minorities in Pakistan, which has a Muslim majority, are not rare.

In August 2023, thousands of people in Punjab's Jaranwala district attacked and burned 21 churches and damaged more than 90 Christian properties after accusing two Christian brothers of blasphemy. Several Christian families have fled their homes because of the violence. Police arrested more than 250 people, including three Christians accused of desecrating a Koran.

Blasphemy is an extremely sensitive issue in Pakistan, and mere allegations have led mobs to lynch dozens of suspects, some of whom were in police custody. Insulting the Quran or Islamic beliefs is punishable by death under the country's blasphemy laws, although no one has ever been executed.

Critics have long called for reform of blasphemy laws, saying they are often misused to settle personal scores. Hundreds of suspects, most of them Muslims, are languishing in prisons in Pakistan because external pressure dissuades judges from moving forward with their trials.

“Even though the majority of those imprisoned for blasphemy were Muslims, religious minorities were disproportionately affected,” the US State Department noted in its annual report on human rights practices in Pakistan.

“Lower courts have often failed to meet basic evidentiary standards in blasphemy cases, which civil society groups and lawyers have attributed to fear of reprisals from religious groups they acquitted defendants of blasphemy, and most of those convicted spent years in prison before higher courts finally overturned their convictions. or ordered their release,” the report said.