Police have arrested about 150 people accused of setting fire to dozens of Christian homes in east Pakistan after a non-Muslim man was accused of making offensive comments about the Islamic prophet Mohammed, police said on Sunday, as Christians rallied against the destruction.
Christian demonstrators blocked a major highway in Lahore and police fired tear gas to disperse protesters demanding government help.
Government spokesman Pervaiz Rashid promised that the government would help them rebuild their homes, but Christians expressed dissatisfaction with the government’s handling of the incident.
“I was robbed of my life’s savings,” said Yusuf Masih, standing next to his burnt home. He said the government’s announcement that it would pay compensation of 200,000 rupees ($2,000) to each family was a joke.
The incident began on Friday after a Muslim man accused a Christian of blasphemy, an offense punishable by life imprisonment or death in Pakistan. On Saturday, a crowd of angry Muslims rampaged through the Christian quarter, burning about 170 houses.
The Christian man is in police custody pending an investigation into the allegations.
The rioters are being investigated on suspicion of arson, robbery, theft and terrorism, police officer Abdur Rehman said. Pakistani police routinely arrest rioters to calm public anger, but the accused are rarely convicted.
The law is often abused to settle personal scores and rivalries.
Akram Gill, the local bishop of Lahore’s Christian community, said the incident had more to do with personal enmity between two men, a Christian and a Muslim, than blasphemy. He said the men got into a fight one evening after drinking late at night, and in the morning the Muslim made up a story of blasphemy as payback.
Blasphemy charges like these in Pakistan could prompt huge crowds to take the law into their own hands. Once an indictment is made, it is difficult to overturn it, in part because law enforcement officials and politicians do not want to be seen as going soft on blasphemers.
At least 16 people have been sentenced to death for blasphemy, and another 20 are serving life sentences, according to Human Rights Watch.
Last year saw a rare retrial of a blasphemy case. A Christian teenage girl with suspected mental retardation has been accused of burning pages of the Koran. But she was later released after huge outrage at home and abroad over her treatment. The local clergyman where she lived was arrested and accused of planting pages in her bag to accuse her, in a rare example of an accuser facing legal consequences. However, he was later released on bail.
Also on Sunday, a suspected US missile strike killed a foreign militant who was riding a horse in Datta Khel in North Waziristan, according to three Pakistani intelligence officials who spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
Published – March 10, 2013 12:18 pm EST.