Heroes confront communal frenzy

JARANWALA:

When rioters were vandalising churches and houses in Jaranwala over allegations of blasphemy, some unsung heroes from the community came forward to maintain interfaith harmony.

A resident, Zulfiqar Ali Jutt, stated that some women had told local people about the alleged incident of desecration, after which the city police had arrested two suspects.

Some people had gathered outside the home of the suspects while the police registered the case and apprehended the suspects.

“We tried to pacify the protesters who had gathered at the Cinema Chowk and persuade them to call off the protest. But all of a sudden, hundreds of young men arrived at the spot on tractor-trolleys and began attacking the churches and setting houses on fire,” Zulfiqar Ali told reporters. He said he, his two brothers and local dignitaries had placed a wooden ladder as a barrier to stop the mob from heading towards the houses of the Christian community.

Read Cleric among dozens being probed over Jaranwala violence

“The mobsters threatened and asked us to leave the place but we assured them that was no home of Christians in the streets next to the Christian Colony.” he added.

“In the meantime, the protesters suddenly ran towards the other corner of the street to attack a small church. We chased them and told them that the families residing there had left their homes,” he shared.

“Actually, we had evacuated dozens of Christian families from their homes and given them shelter in our Muslim acquaintances’ houses at an early stage,” he said.

Zulfiqar Jutt said the mob had also blocked fire brigade vehicles, after which his group removed the barriers and opened the way to extinguish the fire that had engulfed a nearby church. At that moment, some men attacked him with bamboo sticks but he narrowly escaped.

A prayer leader, Moulana Sikandar Hayat Zaki, offered 25 mosques of the Ahl-e-Hadith school of thought to shelter beleaguered Christian families.

He said messages had been conveyed to Catholic, Protestant and Presbyterian priests to reside and pray freely.

The cleric said a plan had been made to visit all local churches to console the community, while Christian leaders would also be invited to mosques to create understanding, tolerance and interfaith harmony between the communities.

Read more PM vows to bring perpetrators to justice

Ration packs are being prepared to distribute among the needy families from the Christian families. Moulana Zaki said the perpetrators of violence could not be called non-Muslims but misguided Muslims.

“We should not close our eyes to acts against humanity,” he added.

Zafar Iqbal Khokhar, a former union council Nazim of Phatanwala, said about 3,000 people had headed on tractor-trolleys towards his village.

“We formed a human chain at the entry point of our village and stopped them. We tried to persuade the misguided people to desist from burning the property and places of worship because it is forbidden in Islam, but to no avail,” he said.

“Meanwhile, the villagers had made arrangements to shift Christian families to a safe outhouse of a nephew of mine,” he added. Zafar Khokhar said the mob was adamant to torch a church and houses of the Christian community but he and his supporters negotiated with the men, raised slogans along with them against the local administration and convinced them to head towards the assistant commissioner’s office for demanding arrest of the suspected blasphemers.

“When we reached the office, I courted arrest and the protesters dispersed,”

Published in The Express Tribune, August 25^th, 2023.