100 arrests, Christians protest on the streets

A Christian was hospitalized in critical condition after a mob accused him of burning pages of the Koran and attempted to lynch him.

by Massimo Introvigne

The May 25 incident in Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan, has provoked strong reactions from Christian and human rights leaders at home and abroad. On May 26 and 27, Christians took to the streets to protest in several Pakistani cities. Due to these reactions, the police responded with unusual speed, arresting more than 100 suspects who may have been part of the mob that attempted to lynch 74-year-old Christian Nazeer Masih Gill, accusing him of blasphemy and burning down his shoe factory.

The arrests are good news, but they should be followed by serious prosecutions. As Monsignor Joseph Arshad, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, and other Christian religious authorities have noted, justice is not guaranteed in Pakistan. It often happens that those arrested are quietly released when the news disappears from the front page of the media.

The information obtained by Bitter Winter provides important details to understand how and why false blasphemy charges are constructed. The victim comes from a well-known local Christian family, but it seems that his real “crime” was having built a successful business. His shoe factory was expanding, arousing the envy of his competitors and neighbors. Nazeer Gill had bought (and regularly paid for) shops near his factory to expand his business. Local Muslim businessmen (who are among those arrested) wanted him to return them, disapproving of the factory’s success.

They decided to play the blasphemy card. According to Nazeer Gill’s family, he was burning garbage outside his factory when a “hidden hand” threw pages from the Quran into the fire and then summoned a mob, shouting that blasphemy was being committed. According to police, activists from the ultra-fundamentalist Islamic group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan had been forewarned and were ready to intervene. The mob grabbed Nazeer Gill and began beating him mercilessly. They also set the factory on fire.

His relatives and factory workers called the police, who sent a large force and managed to rescue Nazeer Gill after a scuffle with the mob. However, he had been beaten so badly beforehand that he is still in a serious condition in hospital and the shoe factory had been largely burnt down.

As in other cases, accusations of blasphemy fabricated by competitors became a means of “punishing” Christians for their business success.