Pakistan Holds Four after Church Attack

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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The recent attack on the Church in Daska on the Christmas day is a direct threat to the Presidents of both of the leading countries of the coalition in the “War against terrorism”, USA and Pakistan – and the message is quite clear “It’s not all over yet”.

The attack on the church reflects that not only the offenders are taking revenge from the Christians but they pose a direct threat to President Musharraf and subsequently to Pakistan. In these circumstances, President Musharraf has to deal in a sensible and wise manner. It is a real test for President Musharraf whether he should continue to follow the American strategy dealing with the targeted groups or he takes into consideration what is the best for Pakistan’s internal affairs – which demand eradication of the root causes. Treating symptoms would help us achieve nothing – it would simply divert our attention from the root causes of the problem, which we cannot afford any longer.

Today, can anyone honestly say that the “War against terrorism” has served any of its (declared) agendas to any extent? Is the terrorism being diminished? Is the justice being served? Conversely, the realities are very bitter and painful.

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Pakistan Holds Four after Church Attack

These barbarics will get HELL!

According to the BBC correspondant, attack came as Police began to lowering their guards.

As reported, four people are the member of J-e-M.

SOURCE: BBC

**Four people including an Islamic cleric have been detained in Pakistan after an attack on a church on Christmas Day in which three children were killed. **

Unidentified assailants threw a grenade at a church in Pakistan’s central Punjab province, killing three young girls.

At least 12 others were injured in the attack at Daska, near Lahore.

The four people detained on Thursday are reported to be members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, a banned militant group fighting Indian rule in Kashmir.

“We have taken people into custody, including a local Islamic prayer leader who is believed to have instigated the attack,” Sialkot district police chief Shahid Iqbal told AFP.

The cleric is said to be known for his fiery speeches.

**The BBC’s Zaffar Abbas in Islamabad says the attack came as police began lowering their guard after tightening security across Pakistan to protect churches during Christmas. **

Attacks on Christians in Pakistan in the past year have left about 40 people dead.

Most have been blamed on Islamic militants with links to al-Qaeda, who are angry at Pakistan’s support for the United States-led war against international terrorism. Militants see that as a war against Islam.

**Masked **

“Two masked men threw a hand grenade on the church during the service,” a police official said.

He said the incident took place at 2030 (1530 GMT) in a village church some 20 kilometres (13 miles) from Daska.

One child was killed instantly, and a woman died on her way to hospital, doctors said. Four of the injured remained in a critical condition.

No one has said they carried out the attack, but the authorities suspect militants of one of several banned Islamic groups.

Earlier, Pakistani security officials said they found a shopping bag containing two grenades and 20 shell casings in bushes about 100 metres from St Thomas’ Protestant Church in Islamabad.

“I don’t know what the motive was of the people who left these two hand grenades and some other ammunition,” a senior interior ministry official, Brigadier Javed Cheema, told the Associated Press news agency.

**Christian fears **

In the last major attack against Christians in September, two gunmen entered the third-floor offices of the Institute for Peace and Justice (IPJ) charity in Karachi, shooting seven people before escaping.

The deaths sparked a wave of anger in the community and were linked to previous attacks on the Christian minority, which have been blamed on Islamic militants

**Police say recent investigations suggest that the killings at the IPJ might have been the result of internal rivalries within the local Christian community in the city.

The attack caused particular shock because of the way it was carried out.

All the victims had had their hands tied and their mouths covered with tape.

They had then been shot in the head. **

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Deleted<

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PT,

The suspects are from Jaish-e-Mohammed as in the Bahawalpur attack.

So why are their leaders and followers being released?

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Correct. I saw your link of Newsonline, referring to Nawai-e-Waqat.

But can they be the same person, hasn’t been proof. Has it?

I think their leader has been house arrest up to now.

LINK

(Maulana)He has been under house arrest in the Pakistani city of Bahawalpur since December 2001.

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M-J Team Condemns attack!

Pakistani President and Prime Minister Condemn Church Attack

ISLAMABAD, Dec. 26 (Xinhuanet) – Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali in separate condolence messages on Thursday strongly condemned the terrorist attack on a church that killed three in the country.

Musharraf in his message said, **“Such reprehensible acts are committed by those anti-Pakistan elements who wish to disrupt peace and tranquillity and create dissension among different communities in the country.” **

He reiterated the resolve to eliminate terrorism in every guise.

The President expressed the hope that all those responsible forthis dastardly act would be brought to book and awarded exemplary punishment.

Prime minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali in his message said that** the attack was carried out by those who wanted to foment religious and sectarian strife in the country but the people were mature enough to foil their evil designs.

He expressed the resolve that no effort would be spared to arrest the culprits and to award them exemplary punishment. **

Three girls were killed and 16 other women sustained serious injuries when hand grenades were thrown on a church Wednesday night in Village Chianwali in Punjab province.

The women were attending a Christmas Day service, when two unidentified persons wearing “burqa” hurled hand grenades and escaped from the scene on a motorcycle.

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Cleric held for Church attack

radical Muslim cleric who urged the faithful to attack Christians was being questioned today in connection with a deadly Christmas Day grenade attack on a Christian church in Pakistan that left three young girls dead and 13 others wounded, police said.

Two assailants covered in burqas, a traditional women’s garb, tossed a grenade into the middle of worshippers at a Christmas Day service yesterday in the village of Chianwala, around 40 miles north west of Lahore.

The cleric, who uses only one name, Afzar, was being detained because of his hateful remarks toward Christians made three days earlier in a sermon at a mosque in the district of Daska, where Chianwala is located, police said.

**Afzar reportedly told his congregation that “it is the duty of every good Muslim to kill Christians”, according to Nazir Yaqub, a local police officer in Daska.

“Afzar told people, ‘You should attack Christians and not even have food until you have seen their dead bodies’,” Yaqub told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.**

An Interior Ministry spokesman, Iftikhar Ahmad, told the AP in Islamabad that all three of the dead were young girls.

Security had been increased at churches ahead of Christmas celebrations around mostly Islamic Pakistan, which has seen a string of Islamic militant attacks targeting Christians this year.

Also yesterday, police said they found explosives and ammunition near a church in Pakistan’s capital, Islamabad. Church officials feared they had been the intended target of an attack.

In Chianwala, about 40 people, mostly women and children and all Pakistanis, were attending a Christmas Day service at the church when the attack occurred yesterday evening.

The two attackers escaped after the attack, said Ahmed, the Interior Ministry spokesman. Four of the injured were in a critical condition, according to Malik Mohammed Iqbal, chief of police in the nearby city of Gujranwala.

Witnesses said the attackers wore burqas, the traditional all-encompassing garment worn by women in some Islamic countries, said Amanat Ali, a police official in Daska.

But it was unclear whether the attackers were women or disguised men. Ali said witnesses reported the attackers were taller than most women.

Male Islamic militants in neighbouring Afghanistan have worn burqas to hide their identities in at least one recent attack there.

Since Pakistan lent its support to the US-led military campaign to overthrow Afghanistan’s hard-line Taliban rulers, attacks on Christians by suspected Islamic militants have killed about 30 people and injured at least 100.

Yesterday, Pakistani security officials said they found a shopping bag in bushes containing two handmade grenades and 20 shell casings about 100 yards from Islamabad’s St Thomas’s Protestant Church.

Church officials said they feared the weapons had been left as part of a planned attack on them.
There have been four deadly attacks on Christians in Pakistan this year. The last was on

September 25, when gunmen entered the offices of a Christian welfare organisation in Karachi, tied seven employees to their chairs and shot each in the head, execution style.

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What the hell is wrong with these boot-leg moulvis???
everyone knows Islam acknowledges Chritianity as a valid religion. Not to mention.. no where does it allwo for Muslims to kill w/o reason.
Asthagfirallah.. they will rot in the deepest dungeons of hell :mad2:

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can you believe this ****..that mulla Afzar reportedly told his congregation that “it is the duty of every good Muslim to kill Christians”, according to Nazir Yaqub, a local police officer in Daska.

“Afzar told people, ‘You should attack Christians and not even have food until you have seen their dead bodies’

i dont care if he was involved with the killing or not..but he should get death for even saying such stuff...this is just too much...

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ASTAGHFIRALLAH :mad2:

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it should come as no surprise.. there are many Mullah Afzars thriving in Pakistan who have plenty of devout followers.. many who may not admit but deep inside firmly believe what that guy preaches.

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I hope the perpetrators of this act rot in hell :mad:

Govt cannot stop acts like this just by arresting the murderers. More often, they are just foot soldiers.

We need to go after the molvis who give the orders. I don’t see it happening though.

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Now where are the Taliban mullah supporters? Hiding as usual from the truth? DILJELEY where are you?

Hang the mullahs by their balls.

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just plain old stupidity .. makes me sick! ... these ignorant jahil so called maulvis dont even deserve to be called maulvis ... a maulvi used to be a scholar and aalam ... not these tut-panjyeah!

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My nagging questions is - why Christians? There are plenty of other minorities in Pakistan that can be targets of terrorism. Why just the Christians?

Is it because the west is mostly christian, and targeting christians will make the west sit up and take more notice? But who gains from this attention? What is being achieved, and by whom?

If u r conducting a pogrom, u will first take out the lowest rung (social hierarchially speaking) that is least noticeable, maybe the jews, parsis, jains, pak hindus. Why would u aim for the most noticeable sector?

And if christians were to be massacred in bulk, why now? Fundamentalists have been in operation for decades, they could have done a great deal of harm before as well... why this sudden rise in activities?

Surely fundamentalists will not gain anything by incurring the censure of the West. Could it be then the West that is planning and carrying out these well-timed attacks, to gain more support for its cause amongst its own populace?

Who is really in charge here?

btw, I am not taking sides, just throwing out a question. Whoever has done this heinous crime has sold his soul to the devil, there is no Islam involved. Maybe all these people are working together - CIA, fundamentalists, etc... for some stupid conspiratorial reason. Who knows.

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Alright,

Now we are getting at somewhere else.

According to local Chrisitians, Muslim religious leader, Qari Muhammad Afzal and his two sons, who were allegedly associated with the banned Jihadi outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad, were directly involved in the attack.

SOURCE

DASKA: Three girls were killed and more than 16 Christians, including four women were seriously injured in a hand-grenade attack by the unknown terrorists on the Presbyterian church in village Chianwali Satrah of Daska Tehsil, about 27 kms away from here on late Wednesday night.

According to the official sources, more than 100 Christians, including women, children and elderly persons, were busy in prayers at the church, when at 8:15 pm, two unidentified terrorists threw two hand-grenades at the church, killing two Christian girls on the spot and seriously injuring more than 16 people.

Two Christian minor girls who died on the spot were identified as Shumaila Masih, 8 daughter of Shaukat Masih and Najma, 2. One girl, daughter of Niyamat Masih of village Chianwali succumbed to her injuries at Satrah Rural Health Centre due to the non-availability of the doctors and medical aid.

The injured are Nasreen, 30, wife of Shaukat Masih, Sana 12, daughter of Ashiq Masih, Shazia, 17, daughter of Boota Masih, Auksan 40, wife of Yousaf Masih , Alisha daughter of Boota Masih, Asmat son of Jumma Masih , Afzal, 28, son of James Masih, Yaqoob son of Jumma Masih, Angat Masih son of Yousaf Masih, Aslam son of James Masih, Parveen wife of Amanat Masih, Misbah, 10, daughter of Ashiq Masih and Nanhi, 11, daughter of Niyamat Masih The injured were admitted to Gujranwala and Lahore hospitals in critical condition .

No policeman was on duty at Presbyterian church in village Chianwali while there was no arrangement of private security. Eye-witnesses told the police officials and high-ups of the secret agencies that the terrorists were two in number who were wearing burqa and fled the scene on a motorcycle without registration number.

There were about two to three craters in the church while the pieces of human bodies spread everywhere in the church. The church was badly damaged from inside. The Sialkot district government announced that it was a brutal terrorist act. The law-enforcement agencies have also termed this incident as a terrorist act. The church is sealed after the incident. Some Christians blamed that a local Muslim religious leader, Qari Muhammad Afzal and his two sons, who were allegedly associated with the banned Jihadi outfit Jaish-e-Muhammad, were directly involved in the attack.

The minorities MPA Jospean Hakim and prominent Christian religious scholar Father Tariq Aimak and hundreds of the mourning Christians were of the view that about three months ago, Jaish-e-Muhammad local leader, Qari Muhammad Afzal and his accomplices had attacked this church with stones, besides threatening the local Christian. community of dire consequences. The matter was also brought to the notice of Satrah police but they did nothing except giving a strict warning to Qari Afzal and his accomplices.

On the report of Christian victims, the Satrah police have registered a case against Qari Afzal and his two sons, including Hafiz Attaullah, under section PPC 34, 109, 302, 324 7 ATA and have arrested them. However, the journalists were not allowed to see the arrested accused.

Meanhwile, Regional Security Officer (RSO) of US Consulate at Lahore Thomas Cage and local MPA Ansar Iqbal Baryar Ch Mumtaz Ali and Muhammad Rizwan visited the spot and expressed complete solidarity with the Christians, besides strongly condemning this brutal incident

Inspector-General Polcie Punjab Syed Masood Shah visited the village Chianwali and suspended SHO Satrah Police Station Inspector Tahir Farooq Cheema Sub-Inspector Shaukat and Constable Shahnawaz for negligence. The IGP also visited the injured at Gujranwala hospital.

The IG also announced compensation of Rs 150,000 for each deceased persons and Rs 50,000 for each injured. The Punjab government has announced free treatment of the injured. Our Lahore correspondent adds: Punjab Chief Minister Ch Pervaiz Elahi has expressed profound grief and sorrow over the attack.

He directed the district administration to search for whereabouts of terrorists and bring them to justice at the earliest. Agencies add: Police on Thursday claimed to have rounded up four terrorists involved in Chianwali Church attack. The arrested accused are as Rana Dildar, Moulvi Muhammad Afzal, while the identity of the remianing two could not be ascertained.

President General Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Jamali have expressed shock and grief over the act of terrorism against a Church. In a condolence message, the president reiterated the resolve to eliminate terrorism in every guise.

“The Christians are a peaceful community, making devoted efforts for the progress and advancement of the motherland,” he added. The president expressed the hope that all those responsible for this dastardly act are brought to book and awarded exemplary punishment.

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*The minorities MPA Jospean Hakim and prominent Christian religious scholar Father Tariq Aimak and hundreds of the mourning Christians were of the view that about three months ago, Jaish-e-Muhammad local leader, Qari Muhammad Afzal and his accomplices had attacked this church with stones, besides threatening the local Christian. community of dire consequences. The matter was also brought to the notice of Satrah police but they did nothing except giving a strict warning to Qari Afzal and his accomplices. *

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** Barbaric, Animals!

I’ve a faith these guys will get Dog’s Death.**

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what religens are invalid to be attacked .

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Courageous Christian Leader, I must say!

Christian Leader says Attacks Not Govt’s Fault

LAHORE, Dec 26: **The attacks on Christians reflect a failure of law-enforcement agencies rather than any shortcoming on the part of government. **

Rev Francis James Chanan, coordinator of United Regional Initiative in Asia, made this statement while talking to Dawn here on Thursday.

While the government had been doing its best to protect the minorities, the law-enforcement agents assigned this duty lacked competence, he maintained.

“The Christian community is feeling insecure due to incidents like that in Daska,” Mr James said.

According to a police source, 35 people have been killed in attacks on Christian places of worships and organizations in Pakistan in the last three years. **The source believed that a lack of coordination among different law-enforcement agencies was the basic reason for the security lapse. **

Rev James said he held a meeting with Governor Khalid Maqbool on Thursday and conveyed to him the concern of the Christian community. “The governor has assured that he will use full force to take the culprits to task and provide security to minorities,” he said.

Iris Aslam, whose husband Aslam Pervaiz got injured in the latest Church attack and was likely to loose one of his eyes, said at Mayo Hospital: “I only request the authorities to compensate the families of those killed and injured in the grenade attack.” All of them all belong to poor families, she said.

Gujranwala police chief Malik Mohammad Iqbal told this reporter that action would be taken against those responsible for the security lapse.

Bishop of Lahore Dr Alexander John Malik in a statement condemned the terrorist attack. He said it was deplorable that people sharing joy on Christmas had been targeted. Praying for the bereaved families, the Bishop demanded of the government to arrest the culprits immediately.

Following is a chronology of the attacks on places of worship and other Christian organisations this year:

  • Five people, including two foreigners, were killed in an attack on a Protestant Church in Islamabad on March 17.

  • An attack on a Christian school in Murree left six people dead on Aug 5.

  • Four persons were killed when grenades were thrown on a Church on the premises of an hospital in Taxila on Aug 9.

  • Seven employees of a Christian organisation were found dead, each of them shot in the head, in Karachi on Sept 25.