An Easter day hate crime has disrupted the serenity of Lahore, Pakistan. A day full of joy has turned into one full of despair. Christians and Muslims, both celebrating Easter at a festival taking place at an amusement park were scarred as close relatives, and friends passed away in the span of minutes.
Christians are one of the religious minorities along with the Hindus in Pakistan. They make around 2 percent of the population of Pakistan, the rest being Muslims. Sadly, these groups have suffered many hate crimes, such as the most recent Easter attack on March 27, 2016, when a suicide bomb went off and killed 72 people and injured 300.
Religion in Pakistan over time has become a more volatile issue. Yes, we are calling out the leadership for it is very bias. For example, the blasphemy law originally enacted under British rule made it a crime to disturb religious peace, specifically by intentionally destroying or defiling a place or an object of worship. In the case of Pakistan, anyone who insults the Prophet Muhammad or the Quran is to be hanged.
An example of this is a Christian couple, by the names of Shama Bibi and Shahbaz Masih, killed by the Punjab Province for committing blasphemous acts. They were accused of tearing the pages of the Quran, the Holy Book of the Muslims, and were beaten to death.
Despite the disrespectful nature of the act, we as Muslims ourselves found this terribly shocking. Murder is highly despised in our religion, and is considered as one of the greatest sins that anyone can commit.
But there are some who think otherwise. A splinter group of the Taliban, called Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed the Easter attack was their doing. Ehsanullah Ehsan, their spokesman, told the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, that they “have entered Lahore.” The group then threatened that it would ensure further attacks. This group specifically targets the Christian population and sadly some Pakistanis agree with them. It goes on to show how much religious hate the minorities have to go through.
Jamaat-ul-Ahrar has also carried out several other attacks on Pakistani Christians, such as the March 2015 bombing of a Roman Catholic Church in Lahore that killed 15 people and injured 70. Many other hate crimes aimed at Christians in Pakistan include church and hospital bombings, as well as mob attacks on Christian villages, which have increased in recent years.
Some Pakistanis actually su-port this group and consider them heroes. We, however, do not. We believe it is everyone’s right to practice whichever faith they find peace in wherever they want.
Specific legislation aside, what exactly is Pakistan’s government doing to help everyone live in peace? Many hate crimes have been committed in the past few years, and many more have been promised for the future. Nevertheless, only now is Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Nawaz Sharif, deciding to take action. According to BBC, “The PM ordered a joint operation of ‎the counter-terrorism department and Rangers in the border areas of Punjab against terrorists and their facilitators,” said one government official, who attended a meeting with Punjab officials and Sharif on Monday.
Sharif specifically commented that security forces should target militants before they were able to strike again. Along with that Dawn News reported him saying, “I want more proactive coordination between law enforcement and intelligence agencies,” he said. “Provinces should speed up intelligence-based operations against terrorists.”
The Prime Minister has also requested that the military take on positions based in the Punjab province. I am glad he finally took a step towards fixing these problems but I do not fully believe he will do something. It seems kind of habitual for politicians to make promises but never commit to them. But we pray that he will implement these new precautionary measures and help out the minorities who do not have such a big voice in the country.
In the end it is not possible to stop all the hate in the world, but we can refuse to allow this fear of killings take over our lives. Thankfully, the government is now looking into the Easter attack and raising security. Overall, the bombing was a tragic event, but we hope that if the Taliban cannot be stopped completely, at least implementing tighter security measures may lessen their attacks. Pakistani citizens, no matter their religion, should be able to live a bit more peacefully.