Churches in Faisalabad in Pakistan’s Punjab province that were vandalised and set on fire by a vigilante Islamist mob last week after two Christian brothers were accused of desecrating the Koran, hosted services for Pakistani Christians on Sunday.
Christian community leader Akmal Bhatti said the diocese’s bishop presided over the services in a few churches in the eastern Pakistani city of Jaranwala. He went to a service that was attended by hundreds of Christians whose homes had been partially or totally destroyed by the mob’s burning and looting on Wednesday.
Later, according to Bhatti, the pastors gave out food rations to people affected by the Islamist attack.
The province government said in a statement on Sunday that each of the impacted households has been approved for compensation in the amount of two million rupees ($6,751.05).The sites of the arson assaults in Jaranwala, in the province of Punjab, have been under the protection of paramilitary forces. The ancient Salvation Army Church, Saint Paul Catholic Church, three smaller churches, and a large number of homes were among the targets of the attack.
According to locals and community leaders, a Christian cemetery was also vandalised, and the crowd, which was armed with iron rods, sticks, bricks, knives, and daggers, rampaged across the area despite the presence of police and administration officials for more than 10 hours.
Police have refuted this, claiming that it stopped things from getting worse.
According to locals and government sources, the campaign that gave rise to the violence was led by clerics from the banned Tehreek-e-Labaik Pakistan (TLP) political group.
The TLP refuted this, claiming that it had worked with the police to restore order.
The two Christian men who are being investigated for blasphemy have been detained by police, who also claim to have apprehended approximately 160 other participants in the mob attack.
Although blasphemy carries a death sentence in Pakistan, no one has ever been put to death for it. Angry mobs have lynched a number of persons who were accused of blasphemy in the past. In an effort to change the blasphemy law, a former regional governor and a minister for minorities were shot and killed.
