Disputed land: ‘Eidgah yes, but no church on community land’

Villagers claim being ‘punished’ for not voting for local influential.

LAHORE:

A group of local Muslims on Sunday razed an under construction church in Chak 3/4-L, Okara, allegedly over political rivalry, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The Christians of Chak 3/4-L, Okara, had started the construction of a church on, what they claimed was their own land. They had erected a wall and installed a cross on it and engraved some Biblical verses.

On Sunday, around 20 people, all of them Muslim, demolished the construction using a tractor. They pulled down the cross and ploughed the land.

Javed Iqbal Masih, a resident of the area, told The Express Tribune that the Christians had tried to convince the group, backed by Pakistan Peoples Party’s Mehar Abdul Sattar, not to disgrace the cross and interfere with the construction of the Church but they did not listen.

Iqbal said this was Sattar’s way of punishing the community for not voting for him in the May elections and preferring a Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz candidate over him. He said two months ago, Sattar had tried to stop them from constructing churches in Chak 4/4 and Chak 12/4 as well.

He said several Muslims neighbours had accompanied them (Christians) to the police station to register an FIR against Sattar. He said Minister for Irrigation Mian Yawar Zaman had intervened and helped them register an FIR against the assailants. However no one had been arrested so far.

Ibrar Ahmed, an investigation officer at Okara Saddar police station, told The Express Tribune that they had registered an FIR under Section 295-A (insulting someone’s religion or religious beliefs) and 506-B (death threats) against 21 people, 11 of them nominated. He said they were conducting raids to arrest them however both parties were also trying to reconcile their differences.

Sattar told The Express Tribune that he was neither nominated in the FIR nor was he behind the move. He defended the group’s actions, however, claiming that they did nothing wrong by stopping the construction. He said the Christians had tried to construct the church on disputed land and the group of Muslims had reacted in a manner that was within their rights. He said although the piece of land (2 kanals) was surrounded by land owned by a Christian, the land where construction was undertaken was not his. He said all the residents of Chak 3/4 had a stake in the land.

Sattar said they (the group of Muslims) had also built an Eid Gah (a place to offer Eid prayers) on another piece of disputed land so that no one could claim ownership to it.

When asked why the Muslims could build an Eid Gah on community land but Christians couldn’t, Sattar said, they could build a community centre if they wished, but could not construct a church.

He admitted that electoral politics had been a factor. He said he had run against a PML-N candidate, “police have registered the FIR on his behalf”.

He said some elements were trying to paint the “non-issue” as a religious dispute for political point scoring.

Human Liberation Commission of Pakistan chairman Aslam Parvaiz Sahotra condemned the incident and demanded an early inquiry. He said the state’s irresponsible attitude towards Christians had made them vulnerable to such attacks. He said they faced discrimination at every level.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 11^th, 2014.