A MUSLIM cleric is among a dozen people being investigated for using mosque loudspeakers to order protests against alleged blasphemy by Christians, which erupted into mob violence in Pakistan earlier this week, said Punjab police chief Usman Anwar.

More than 80 Christian homes and 19 churches were vandalised when hundreds rampaged through a Christian neighbourhood in Jaranwala in Punjab on Wednesday.

Reports that a Quran had been desecrated were broadcast from mosques, with one cleric telling his followers it was: “Better to die if you don’t care about Islam.”

“That cleric should have understood that when you gather people in such a charged environment… in a country in which people were already very sensitive about (blasphemy), it is like adding fuel to fire,” Usman told AFP during an interview in Lahore yesterday.

“He’s not saying go and burn their houses. But when the mob gathers, it’s really impossible to control that.”

He said the cleric was one of 12 being investigated for using mosque loudspeakers, while more than 125 people have been arrested for the vandalism that followed, thanks to the use of facial recognition technology, mobile phone geo-fencing and data gathered from social media.

At its peak, more than 5,000 people poured into the neighbourhood from other districts, with smaller mobs spreading to narrow alleys where they ransacked homes.

Christians who fled in the hundreds have criticised police for failing to protect their property, with some sheltered by their Muslim neighbours.

“If police had started baton charging, or attacking (the mob), or tear gassing, that would have resulted in multiple injuries or deaths, and that is what we were avoiding at that time. That would have aggravated the situation that would have spread in all the country,” said Usman.

Negotiations with religious leaders led to calls for calm, he said.

Thousands of churches guarded

Two Christian brothers were arrested for blasphemy after torn pages of the Quran with offensive words scrawled across them were stuck to the walls of a mosque in Jaranwala in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Usman said he personally interrogated the pair to avoid the possibility of accusations of torture.

Yesterday, 3,200 churches were guarded by police across Punjab province to provide reassurance to the Christian community, Usman said, adding that he will travel to Jaranwala tomorrow to show solidarity.

Christians, who make up around 2% of the population, occupy one of the lowest rungs in Pakistani society and are frequently targeted with spurious blasphemy allegations.

The majority of those accused of blasphemy in Pakistan are Muslims, but members of religious minorities face an especially acute threat, said rights groups.

Blasphemy is an incendiary charge in deeply conservative, Muslim-majority Pakistan, where even unproven allegations of insulting Islam and its Prophet Muhammad can provoke death at the hands of vigilantes.

Politicians have been assassinated, lawyers murdered and students lynched over accusations of blasphemy.

In one of Pakistan’s most high-profile cases, Christian woman Asia Bibi was at the centre of a decade-long blasphemy row, which eventually saw her death sentence overturned and her fleeing the country.

Her case sparked violent demonstrations and high-profile assassinations while spotlighting religious extremism across wide sections of Pakistani society.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the number and size of the attacks “appear to have increased in recent years”.

Usman said while anger towards blasphemy may be justified, the violent reactions were not, describing the scenes in Jaranwala as “tragic”.

He said clerics and the government must ensure religion is not misused.

“The most important thing is that we, the Muslims, in this country, are going to become more tolerant. Once we are given the true message of Islam, that is the role of the government,” he said. – AFP, August 19, 2023.