Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Lahore (Agenzia Fides) – There is still no arrest of the culprits that, on 5 July, burned a Muslim man, Ghulam Abbas, probably mentally ill alive, only because he was accused of blasphemy in Chani Ghot, in the Diocese of Multan in South Punjab (see Fides 05/07/2012). A crowd of over a thousand Islamists broke into the local police station, wounding agents, took the man who was taken to the street, covered him with petrol and was burnt alive. As reported to Fides, civil society and Christian leaders are disappointed and concerned that, despite the investigation ordered by President Ali Zardari of Pakistan and a complaint registered by the police, ten days since the horrible act, no culprit has yet been identified and arrested. This attitude, note sources of Fides, threatens to "endorse the summary justice", and a sense of "impunity" for those who "make their own justice."
The civil society leaders have denounced the silence of the provincial government of Punjab and the lack of action by police towards the perpetrators. According to the Christian Sarfraz Clement, coordinator of the NGO "Action Against Poverty '(AAP)" it is shocking that the police have not arrested even one person." The Christian Protestant pastor Mustaq Gill, president of LEAD ("Legal Evangelical Association"), told Fides: "In this crime some influential radical Islamic organizations are involved and is therefore very difficult for the authorities to proceed against them. In addition, the act was committed by an angry mob and it is difficult to identify a single culprit. In other cases, mass violence such as these have remained unpunished."
As sources of Fides note, in Pakistan attempts to lynch the accused of blasphemy come one after another. Recently in Faisalabad (in Punjab), the police have rescued a man, accused of blasphemy and beaten by a mob instigated by the radical organization " Dawat Tehreek-e-Islami". Last month in Quetta (in Baluchistan), a Muslim mob stormed in a police station to try to stone to death a man accused of blasphemy. The police responded with tear gas and gunfire to restore order, in the riots two children were killed. In Karachi (in Sindh), a Muslim man, accused of blasphemy, in prison because of drugs, has repeatedly risked being killed by other Muslim inmates. The police have put him in a separate cell to protect him. (PA) (Agenzia Fides 16/7/2012)
