Punjab's caretaker chief minister promises to 'restore' churches and homes attacked by mob

Caretaker Chief Minister of Pakistan's Punjab province Mohsin Naqvi on Thursday promised to ''restore'' within three to four days all the churches and the homes of the minority Christian community which were attacked and torched by a mob a day earlier.

An enraged mob ransacked and torched 21 churches and several houses of Christians on Wednesday over blasphemy allegations in Jaranwala town of Faisalabad district, 130 km from Punjab's provincial capital Lahore. A Christian cemetery and the office of the local assistant commissioner were also vandalised.

Addressing a meeting attended by religious leaders of the Christian community on Thursday, Naqvi condemned the mob violence and said such actions are against the teachings of Islam and those of the Holy Prophet.

He said the mob attack was a ''planned conspiracy'' to ''light a fire in the country and sabotage its peace,'' the Dawn newspaper reported.

Naqvi promised that all buildings damaged in the mob violence would be restored in ''three to four days'' to their original state and vowed to prevent any such ''conspiracy'' in the future.

''For the future, we should sit with our minorities and chalk out a plan to prevent such incidents,'' he said, urging religious leaders to spread the message of the Holy Quran among the people.

Paramilitary troops have cordoned off the area where the mob vandalised and torched churches and scores of houses after two men living there were accused of desecrating the Holy Quran, police and witnesses said on Thursday.

Police in the Jaranwala area on Thursday took a 'curfew-like' measure to restore peace and arrested over 100 suspects including activists of radical Islamists Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) for their alleged involvement in violence a day earlier.

More than 3,000 policemen and two companies of Pakistan Rangers have been deployed in Jaranwala following Wednesday's riots.

The government has imposed section 144 prohibiting the gathering of four or more people in Jaranwala. Besides, all educational institutions, business centres and markets remained closed in Jaranwala on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the Punjab government has issued directions to form a high-level inquiry committee to investigate the incident, in line with orders issued by caretaker Prime Minister Anwaarul Haq Kakar.

The incident sparked nationwide outrage from all political parties, civil society and the media.

Minorities including Christians and Hindus in Pakistan have frequently been subjected to blasphemy allegations and some were tried and even sentenced under the tough blasphemy.

According to a report by the Centre for Peace and Justice Pakistan in June last year, based on data collected from the National Database and Registration Authority, Pakistan is home to 22,10,566 people from the minority Hindu community followed by Christians 18,73,348.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)