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Christians meeting at their church building to discuss security concerns
over Islamist threats were sprayed with gunfire as they came out.
Christians meeting at their church building to discuss security concerns
over Islamist threats were sprayed with gunfire as they came out. Muslim extremist groups had threatened church for two years.
SUKKUR, Pakistan, July 29 (CDN) --- A dozen masked men shot five
Christians to death as they came out of their church building here on
July 15, two months after a banned Islamic extremist group sent church
leaders a threatening letter, relatives said.
Pastor Aaron John and church members Rohail Bhatti, Salman John, Abid
Gill and Shamin Mall of Full Gospel Church were leaving the church
building after meeting to discuss security in light of the threats they
had received, said the pastor's son, Shahid John. "As we came out of the church, a group of a dozen armed gunmen came and
opened fire at us," said Shahid John, who survived a bullet in his arm.
"Fear struck the area. The police arrived 45 minutes after the incident,
and we waited for over 45 minutes for the ambulance to arrive." Besides Shahid John, five others were wounded in the attack. In May church leaders received a letter from Islamic extremist group
Sip-e-Sahaba (formerly Sipah-e-Sahaba until it was banned) warning the
Christians to leave the area, said Kiran Rohail, wife of the slain
Rohail Bhatti. "It said to vacate the land, Christians are not welcomed here, they are
polluting our land," Kiran Rohail said. The Sip-e-Sahaba and Sunni Tehrik extremist groups are both linked with
an area madrassa (Islamic school) whose students had been threatening
the church since 2008, Christian sources said. "In 2008 a group of Muslim students started making threats for the
church to vacate the land, as there are only 55 Christian families
living in the area," said the pastor's widow, Naila John, who also lost
her son Salman John in the attack. The masked gunmen of July 15 had young physiques like those of students,
Christian sources said, and their manner of attack indicated they were
trained extremists. The madrassa students that have threatened the church since 2008 belong
to the Sunni Tehrik extremist group, the sources said. Pastor John and Bhatti had reported the threats of the past two years to
police, but officers at the local station did not take them seriously,
said Naila John. When they received the threatening letter in May, Pastor John, his son
Salman, Bhatti, Gill, Mall and another member of the church, Arif Gill,
went to the police station to register a First Information Report (FIR),
according to Shahid John. "Police just took the application but didn't register the FIR," he said.
"The station house officer just provided two police constables for
security." On the evening of July 15, the pastor called a meeting to discuss needed
security measures, his widow Naila John said. The meeting ended around
7:30 p.m., when they left the building and were sprayed with gunfire. "No FIR has been registered due to the pressure from the local Islamic
groups," said Kiran Rohail, referring to Sunni Tehrik, Sip-e-Sahaba and
the local mosque. "The police came and took our statements, but they
didn't show up again." An independent government source confirmed the shooting deaths of the
Christians, adding that local Islamist pressure had prevented media from
reporting on it. The church began in 1988, and Pastor John had been leading it since 2001. Sukkur, in southwest Pakistan's Sindh Province, has been the site of
previous violence against Christians. Last June or July, area Christians
said, students from the local madrassa beat Pastor Adnan John of Multan,
severely injuring him, after they saw him walking in front of the mosque
wearing a cross and holding a Bible. In another instance, the Muslim
students prevented Christian students from holding a Christmas program
at a park. In 2006, some 500 Muslims burned down two churches in Sukkur and a
convent school on Feb. 19, reportedly over rumors that a Christian threw
a copy of the Quran into a trash can. A crowd wielding gasoline bombs
torched St. Mary's Catholic Church and St. Savior's Church of Pakistan
after media and government sources floated the rumor, but local sources
said the violence occurred after a Muslim was arrested for burning pages
of the Quran and trying to frame his Christian father-in-law, Saleem
Gill, with the deed. After torching the inside of St. Savior's, the mob turned on Pastor
Ilyas Saeed Masih's home, then went five minutes away to destroy the
120-year-old St. Mary's edifice.
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