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Police have arrested around 150 people accused of burning dozens of Christian houses in eastern Pakistan
after a non-Muslim was accused of making offensive comments about
Islam's Prophet Muhammad, police said Sunday as Christians rallied
against the destruction.
The Christian demonstrators blocked a main highway in Lahore and
police fired tear gas shells to disperse the protesters who demanded
assistance from the government.
Government spokesman Pervaiz Rasheed
promised the government would help hem rebuild their houses, but the
Christians expressed dissatisfaction with the way the government was
handling the incident.
"I have been robbed of all of my life's savings," Yousuf Masih said,
standing close to his burned house. He said the government's
announcement that it would give 200,000 rupees ($2,000) compensation to
each family was a joke.
The incident began on Friday after a Muslim accused a Christian man
of blasphemy — an offense that in Pakistan is punished by life in prison
or death. On Saturday, a mob of angry Muslims rampaged through the
Christian neighborhood, burning about 170 houses.
The Christian man is in police custody pending an investigation into the allegations.
Those who rioted are being investigated for alleged arson, robbery, theft, and terrorism, said police officer Abdur Rehman. The Pakistani police usually arrest rioters to tamp down public anger, but those accused are rarely convicted.
The law is often misused to settle personal scores and rivalries.
Akram Gill, a local bishop in the Lahore Christian community,
said the incident had more to do with personal enmity between two men —
one Christian and one Muslim — than blasphemy. He said the men got into
a brawl after drinking late one night, and in the morning the Muslim
man made up the blasphemy story as payback.
Such accusations of blasphemy in Pakistan can prompt huge crowds to
take the law into their own hands. Once an accusation is made it's
difficult to get it reversed, partly because law enforcement officials
and politicians do not want to be seen as being soft on blasphemers.
According to Human Rights Watch, there are at least 16 people on
death row for blasphemy and another 20 are serving life sentences.
Last year, there was a rare reversal of a blasphemy case. A teenage
Christian girl with suspected mental disabilities was accused of burning
pages of the Quran. But she was later released after a huge domestic
and international outcry about her treatment. A local cleric where she
lived was arrested and accused of planting the pages in her bag to
incriminate her, a rare example of the accuser facing legal
consequences. However, he was later freed on bail. Read the full articles here.
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