WUNRN
http://www.dawn.com/news/1169713
PAKISTAN – WOMEN & GIRLS GRIEVE WHEN TALIBAN ATTACK
TWO CHURCHES
The political becomes personal in the female pain and loss of innocent civil society victims.
March 17, 2015 - LAHORE: At
least 15 people were killed and more than 70 injured when two Taliban suicide
bombers attacked churches in Lahore on Sunday, sparking mob violence in which
two other suspected militants died.
The bombings occurred during
prayers at two churches located around half a kilometre apart in the city's
Youhanabad neighbourhood that is home to more than 100,000 Christians,
officials said.
Broken window panes, blood
and shoes were scattered across the blast sites.
Police spokeswoman Nabila
Ghazanfar said two policemen guarding the churches were among those killed in
the attacks, while two people were beaten to death by protesters who took to
the streets after the blasts.
“Policemen on duty at both
the entrances tried to stop them but the bombers blew themselves up,” she told
AFP.
The angry mob protesting
after the blast beat to death two people whom they suspected of being
associates of the attackers. An AFP photographer saw the bodies of the two
suspected militants on fire after the beatings. It was not clear whether they
were still alive at the time.
Up to 4,000 Christians later
spread across the city’s streets; many were armed with clubs as they smashed
vehicles and attacked a Metro bus station in a rare show of anger by the
beleaguered minority.
Rising anger
The thousands of Christian
protesters who clashed with police on Sunday attacked their cars with stones
and sticks, as women wept and beat their heads and chests.
The protesters, some wearing
crosses round their necks, later turned on the city's bus rapid transit system
-- a signature project of the ruling PML-N party of Prime Minister Nawaz
Sharif.
Christians make up around
two percent of Pakistan's mainly Muslim population of 180 million. They have
been targeted in attacks and riots in recent years, often over allegations of
blasphemy.
Sunday's attacks were the
worst on the community since a devastating 2013 double suicide-bombing in
Peshawar that killed 82 people. That attack came months after more than 3,000
protesters torched some 100 houses as they rampaged through Joseph Colony,
another Christian neighbourhood of Lahore, following blasphemy allegations
against a Christian man.
Sharif in a statement
condemned the church bombings and “directed provincial governments to ensure
the security of (the) public and their properties”.
Zaeem Qadri, a spokesman for
the provincial government, said efforts were being made to talk to the
protesters to stop the rioting but “emotions are very high because their
churches have been attacked”.
Christians also took to the
streets in other cities, including Karachi, where around 200 protesters blocked
a main road and burnt tyres. There were also demonstrations in Peshawar in the
northwest, in the central city of Multan and in Quetta in the southwest.
Sunday's attack was the
first by the Taliban since three of their major factions said on Thursday they
had reunited.
The military has stepped up
its fight against militants since Taliban gunmen massacred more than 150
people, most of them children, at a school in Peshawar in December.
A moratorium on executions
in terror cases was lifted and the constitution amended to set up military
courts for the speedy trial of terrorism cases. Later, the death penalty was
reinstated for all capital cases.