Post date: Mar 10, 2013 6:1:10 PM
Pakistani Christians and police clash after a Christian neighbourhood was torched a day earlier in connection with the country's controversial anti-blasphemy law.
KARACHI , PAKISTAN (MARCH 10, 2013) (REUTERS) - Hundreds of Pakistani Christians took to the streets across the country on Sunday (March 10), demanding better protection after a Christian neighbourhood was torched in Lahore a day earlier.
Police fired into the air in Lahore and the country's largest city, Karachi, to try disperse protesters furious at the mass torching and ransacking, which was sparked by an allegation of blasphemy.In Karachi, Christian protesters threw stones at shop windows and banks.
Some protesters beat bystanders with sticks. Police had to resort to aerial firing to disperse the enraged demonstrators.
Christian protesters smashed the windows of buses and clashed with baton-wielding policemen in Lahore, near the Saint Joseph Colony neighbourhood that was torched.
"It was extremely cruel. It was inhumane. We have been made homeless without any reason. We did not do anything wrong; committed no blasphemy; we had done nothing," said a young Christian Saleem Masih, weeping.
A protest in another Christian neighbourhood of the city erupted into violence when protesters blocked the main road and tried to smash vehicles, police said.
The clashes highlight mounting sectarian tension in the country of 190 million, where Sunni groups have been attacking Shi'ites with alarming regularity.
Less than 2 percent of the country are Christians.
Elsewhere throughout Punjab province, home to Lahore, Christians held small, peaceful protests.
Punjab's Law Minister condemned the protests, promising to "bring the torchers to the gallows" but asked the Christians not to take the law into their hands.
Lahore police official Rai Tahir said more than 150 Muslims were arrested inLahore of suspicion of torching the homes, and will be tried in anti-terrorism courts.
Hundreds of residents had fled their homes, escaping the violence.
In Islam, allegations of blasphemy are treated very seriously.
Police said a pair of men, one Christian and one Muslim, argued in Lahore on Friday, leading to the Christian being accused of blasphemy.
He is reportedly in police custody.
The recent case of a young Pakistani Christian girl accused by an imam of burning pages of the Koran showed the danger of the country's anti-blasphemy law for ordinary Pakistanis, including Muslims outside the Sunni majority.