Mosques probed over protest call in Pakistan blasphemy riots

Lahore, Pakistan – AFP

A Muslim cleric is among a dozen people being investigated for using mosque loudspeakers to order protests against alleged blasphemy by Christians which erupted into mob violence in Pakistan earlier this week, a senior police official said.

More than 80 Christian homes and 19 churches were vandalised when hundreds rampaged through a Christian neighbourhood in Jaranwala in Punjab province on Wednesday.

Reports that a Quran had been desecrated were broadcast from mosques, with one cleric telling his followers it was “Better to die if you don’t care about Islam”.

“That cleric should have understood that when you gather people in such a charged environment… in a country in which people were already very sensitive about (blasphemy) it is like adding fuel to fire,” Punjab police chief Usman Anwar told AFP during an interview in Lahore on Friday.

“He’s not saying that go and burn their houses. But when the mob gathers, it’s really impossible to control that.”

He said the cleric was one of 12 people who were being investigated for using mosque loudspeakers, while more than 125 people have been arrested linked to the vandalism that followed, thanks to the use of facial recognition technology, mobile phone geo-fencing and data gathered from social media.

Two Christian brothers have been arrested for blasphemy, after torn pages of the Quran with offensive words scrawled across them were stuck to the walls of a mosque in Jaranwala in the early hours of Wednesday morning.

Anwar said he personally interrogated the pair to avoid the possibility of accusations of torture.

On Friday, 3,200 churches were guarded by police across Punjab province to provide reassurance to the Christian community, Anwar said.