Targeted Christians found shelter with Muslims during Pakistan rampage

Jaranwala, Pakistan — AFP

Pastor Javed Bhatti was roused from his sleep by the mosque’s loudspeaker — not the usual Islamic call to prayer, but a thundering call to protest against alleged blasphemy by Christians.

Instinctively, he gathered his family and ran to the street, where fellow Christians were already spilling from their homes into narrow alleyways.

“Some were running barefoot and some fled in rickshaws. There was chaos everywhere,” he said on Thursday, a day after hundreds of people rampaged through the streets, burning homes and churches.

“The children were shouting, ‘Run, run, the clerics are coming! They will attack us’,” his sister Naila Bhatti added.

Christians make up around two percent of the population of Pakistan. More than 5,000 live in the Christian quarter in Jaranwala, a poverty-stricken shanty town.

As panic spread across the neighbourhood, Muslims also rushed to the streets to warn and shelter their neighbours.

“The crowd came from outside (this area), but the local Muslims here helped us and tried to save us,” Pastor Bhatti said.

Tariq Rasool, in the same narrow street as Bhatti, said Muslims had quickly pinned Quranic verses on the doors of Christian homes in the hope that they would be spared the violence.

“Two women were running. I opened the door of my house for them and let them inside. They were very worried but I consoled them,” the 58-year-old Muslim recounted.

The mob swelled in size and anger throughout the day, with hundreds at its peak rioting through the streets.

By nightfall, at least four churches and a dozen houses and shops had been burned and ransacked, according to reporters at the scene.

Imran Qadri, a bearded practising Muslim, opened his home to two Christian women.

“They are still inside our house. My family helped them, provided them with food and they spent the night with us,” Qadri said, standing alongside Bhatti.

Parveen Bibi fled with her eight family members after being woken up by her young children screaming: “Mobs are coming to burn our houses!”

“We took rickshaws to the home of our Muslim neighbours. The door was open and we all went inside. I was accompanied by women, my two daughters-in-law and children. The women said, ‘You are safe here, don’t worry’,” she explained tearfully, standing in the rubble of her home.