LAHORE: More than 80 Christian homes and 19 churches in Pakistan were vandalized when a Muslim mob rampaged through the streets over alleged blasphemy this week, the head of Punjab provincial police, Usman Anwar, said Friday.
“The events that unfolded were tragic. Violence like this can never be justified,” he told AFP, adding that he will travel to the city of Jaranwala on Sunday to show solidarity with the Christian community.
Anwar said he personally interrogated two Christian brothers accused of desecrating the Qur'an “to avoid accusations of torture.”
Hundreds of Pakistan’s Christian minority fled their homes Wednesday when an angry crowd of Muslim men tore through the streets of Jaranwala, on the outskirts of the industrial city of Faisalabad, torching homes and churches.
On Friday, 3,200 churches were guarded by police across Punjab province to provide reassurance to the Christian community, Anwar said.
The angry mob of hundreds were ordered to protest by Muslim clerics, who used mosque loudspeakers to spread news of the allegations.
Homes in the Christian neighborhood were ransacked, with their contents strewn all over the streets.
Muslims living in the predominantly Christian area gave shelter to their neighbors and pinned Qur'anic verses to the doors of Christian homes to prevent them from being targeted, residents of both faiths told AFP.
Government and religious leaders have called for calm.
Christian groups have held a number of small protests across the country calling for greater protection.
“We hope that through this protest, the government must realize that this issue must be dealt with sternly and those who committed destruction must be brought to justice,” Archbishop of Karachi, Benny Travis, told AFP at a small rally.
The Punjab caretaker leader Mohsin Naqvi expressed solidarity with Christians, adding that they would be compensated for their losses.
The provincial government has announced an inquiry into the violence.
Christians, who make up around two percent of the population, occupy one of the lowest rungs in Pakistani society and are frequently targeted with spurious blasphemy allegations.
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.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan said the number and size of the attacks “appear to have increased in recent years.”