TFT: Khaled Ahmed on minority "rights" in Pakistan

Vandalising the churches of Sangla Hill

Khaled Ahmed’s
Analysis

On 12 November 2005, the Christian community of Sangla Hill in Nankana District in Punjab experienced a most hair-raising day of violence and vandalism. Daily Dawn (13 November 2005) described it like this: ‘The burning down on Saturday of three churches, a missionary-run school, two hostels and several houses belonging to the Christian community by an enraged mob of some 3,000 people in Punjab’s Nankana district speaks volumes for the bigotry and intolerance that misguided mullahs often preach against minorities. Following allegations of blasphemy levelled against one Yousaf Masih by his gambling partners who accused him of torching the Holy Quran, calls were reportedly given from mosque loudspeakers to punish the local Christians.

‘According to Lahore’s archbishop, Lawrence Saldanha, the assault on some 300 families residing in the area was carried out by people who had been brought there by buses from outside. The alleged desecration of the Holy Book took place on Friday, which gave the local fanatics enough time to plan the attack against the minority community the next day. That the police stood aside and failed to pre-empt the strikes against Christian institutions despite apprehensions voiced to the effect by community leaders is all the more incomprehensible. The extensive damage caused to property and the communal tension now gripping the area could have been prevented if timely action had been taken by the security authorities.’

The law on the desecration of the Quran is as follows: Section 295-B Defiling of copy of the holy Quran : Whoever wilfully defiles, damages or desecrates a copy of the Holy Quran or an extract therefrom, or uses it in a derogatory manner or any unlawful purpose, shall be punishable with imprisonment for life. (Inserted in the Penal Code through Ordinance in 1982). Many Christians have been convicted under this law by the lower courts, but most of them have been acquitted on appeal at the higher courts. The pattern of violence however seems to pre-empt the law. What happened at Sangla Hill this November is second in its savagery to the 1997 sack of Shantinagar after a report of desecration.

On 5 February 1997, the twin villages of Shantinagar-Tibba Colony 12 kilometres East of Khanewal, Multan Division, were looted and burnt by 20,000 Muslim citizens and 500 policemen. The police first evacuated the Christian population of 15,000, then helped the raiders use battle-field explosives to blow up their houses and property. When no one from the president of Pakistan to IGP Punjab reacted to this biggest act of destruction in 50 years, Christian youth took out processions in Rawalpindi and Karachi and were fired upon by the police in the latter city, while the youth in Lahore was asked by their elders to refrain from protesting.

There are often Urdu press reports that foreshadow religious violence. First, an alarming news scandalising the Muslims about the alleged misconduct of a minority community is published, which is followed by ‘action’ by the ‘truly believing’ Muslims. Recently a group of Qadianis were killed after the Urdu press font-paged violent statements against them by a gathering of the Khatm-e-Nabuwwat organisation. When the Shias are to be massacred, old fatwas declaring them apostates are distributed in the localities where the incident later occurs. In 2003, the Hazaras of Quetta were massacred after the city was treated to a campaign of old fatwas from Pakistan’s major Sunni madrassas. A similar report on Christian missionary work was published nearly a month before the Sangla Hill outrage.

As reported in Nawa-e-Waqt (18 October 2005) one Christian priest Robert Peterson was given the task to convert Pakistanis to Christians. He opened his office in Mianwali from where he was able to convert 17,000 Muslims into Christians in all four provinces since 1995. Pakistan was considered a soft target for this campaign which was supposed to add to the population of 1.5 million Christians in the country. Private radio stations were being used to spread the message and there were branch offices of converting priests in many cities of the country. One organisation in Karachi named Friends for Muslims was using seduction to convert Muslim boys. They were seduced by beautiful girls and then persuaded to accept Christianity.

Just like the Sangla Hill incident, the destruction of Shantinagar in 1997 was ‘organised’ from the mosques. Three churches in Khanewal too, including the Salvation Army Church and the Church of Pakistan, together with their dispensaries, were ransacked and burnt. A crowd of 20,000, made up of people from the surrounding villages and cities of Khanewal, Kabirwallah, Main Channu and Multan, and led by the police and the clergy, then set out for Shantinagar. On the way, they attacked Tibba Colony, and blew up all the houses there, including a hospital. A Salvation Army church and the school run by it were blown up with a special incendiary powder distributed by the police.

Violence is also indirectly unleashed by politicians who normally use extreme language. Newsweek in its 9 May 2005 reported that the Quran had been desecrated at the prisons run by the United States at Guantanamo Bay. Pakistan’s popular cricket icon and reputable political leader Imran Khan alerted the Muslim world to the outrage. It was a measure of Mr Khan’s popularity that flag-burning tribesmen in Afghanistan came out into the streets in various cities and carried out vandalism on public property to express their anger against the United States. At least 15 Afghans died. The punishment for the desecration of the Quran in Afghanistan is death. Many in Pakistan think that here too it should be death and not life, and this sentiment could partially be behind the wave of destruction that follows a desecration report.

In the case of Sangla Hill, chief minister Punjab Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi acted promptly. He punished the neglectful and colluding police hierarchy of the town and declared that the government would rebuild and restore the Christian property destroyed. The Muslim clergy had organised protests that spread to neighbouring Shahkot and the Faisalabad highway was blocked by protesting college and school students to widen the scope of the Muslim outrage. A number of vandals were rounded up by the police later, which evoked an angry response from an extremist cleric of Lahore who then vowed to visit Sangla Hill and undo the injustice the government was doing to the innocent Muslims of Sangla Hill. This might prove the allegation that destruction of Sangla Hill was carried out by hooligans who came to the town from outside.

Daily Pakistan (25 November 2005) reported that Maulana Dr Sarfraz Naeemi, secretary general of Tanzimat Madaris Dinia, had declared that the government had paid scant attention to the desecration of the Quran but had rounded up 88 Muslim citizens of Sangla Hill on the fake charges of destroying the Christian churches. He declared that the Christian clergy had set the churches on fire after the desecration incident and should be put behind bars and not allowed to leave the country. He warned that he was taking a procession to Sangla Hill to get the Muslims released from jail. He protested against religion minister Ijazul Haq’s statement that the Muslims had destroyed the churches. He said that the Quran library was burnt by the Christian clergy with the help of a special incendiary powder first used by them in Shantinagar in 1997. According to Nawa-e-Waqt (26 November 2005) World Pasban Khatm-e-Nabuwwat declared that the Sangla Hill destruction of churches was carried out by Qadianis.

The tehsil of Sangla Hill is situated in the newly created district of Nankana Sahib and lies 130 km from the provincial capital of Lahore. The area has a population of 150,000 with around 12,000 of the population being Christian. Among the Christians, the Catholics are in majority, while the rest belong to various protestant denominations. The parish of Sangla Hill was set up in 1914, out of the Mariamabad parish territory. Even in 1937 there were around 4,000 Catholics in the parish, who are now grown to around 1800 families. The parish comprises 183 villages, many of which have small chapels, while the main parish church of the Holy Spirit was constructed and blessed in April 1951. The parish team comprises of Father Samson Dilawar and six catechists. Muslim-Christian tension was rare; but in one recent case in the neighbourhood (9 May 2005 in the village of Sathiali Kalan) when the two communities clashed, resulting in the burning of a chapel, the police rounded up five Christians (and no Muslims) who arestill ‘under custody’ without trial.

The destruction of the churches in Sangla Hill has hurt Pakistan’s image at a time when it needs positive publicity abroad. The Urdu press has given the outrage little coverage and has expressed no editorial opinion about it. The Christian community have made sufficiently credible reports on the incident to their Western church superiors. They seem to agree about the origin of the trouble. Yousaf Masih was in the habit of gambling with a Muslim Kalu Sunyara. After winning from Kalu, Yousaf Masih wanted to walk away but was collared by Kalu in the street who asked him to play on. He was accused of having torched a store-room set aside for the abandoned pages of the Holy Quran so that they may not be trampled underfoot. There is no description from the Christian side of the actual burning of the Quran Mahal.

Under the new procedure established by the government, a desecration of the Quran case is registered after consultation with the District Police Officer (DPO) but in the case of Sangla Hill the SHO Malik Ashraf registered the case and proceeded to torture the brothers of Yousaf Masih after they failed to lead him to wherever he was. (He was finally apprehended.) The Holy Spirit Church was attacked a day later, on 12 November 2005, after announcements from the mosques asking people to gather ‘for discussion’. Soon, Mohammad Azim, the city nazim (mayor) was leading the crowd. A mob of around 2,500 people holding sticks, stones, big hammers and bottles of chemicals, attacked the church compound. They raised cries of Allahu Akbar (God is great) and Asai kuttay hai-hai (Down with the Christian dogs).

The crowd divided into groups, the first one immediately attacking the church, while the other focused on the parish house; a third attacked the school and hostel from the other side. They completely destroyed all the furnishings of the church, broke all its stained glass windows and doors, desecrated the tabernacle and took away the chalice and ciborium. They also set fire to the Bible inside the church and burnt the altar cloth. The parish house was set ablaze with the help of the special chemicals the mob brought along. They seemed well trained in arson as the chemicals used were of special quality. Old records of the church mission, which dated back to 1911, too were destroyed. A student’s hostel, a convent and St Anthony’s School were meted out the same treatment.

In Tariqabad (Machchar Colony), the mob set ablaze the house of Yousaf Masih and drove his family out of town. A Presbyterian church in Sangla Hill was also destroyed as the mob made no distinction between Protestant and Catholic Christianity. The fanaticism of the smaller towns continues to be on the upswing, aided and abetted by the Muslim clergy and egged on by the opposition politicians who hate the United States but care little for what happens to Christians at home who are Pakistanis and are protected by the Constitution.