Christians accused of lynching two suspects after the church attacks in Youhanabad, Lahore, with officials of the Center for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement. (Photo supplied)
A new book by a university student in Pakistan documents the tragedy in Youhanabad that claimed the life of Akash Bashir and led to the arrest of dozens of Christians for the lynching of two Muslims suspected of involvement in two church bombings.
Akash, a lay Catholic, was martyred while stopping a suicide bomber from entering the crowded St. John’s Catholic Church on March 15, 2015, in the Christian-dominated neighborhood of Lahore.
In the immediate aftermath of the suicide attacks on a Catholic and a Protestant church, an enraged mob lynched two Muslims suspected of being involved in the terror act.
“These assassinating and uncontrollable riots reflect a pattern that has been encoded within our system. It’s a way of fighting the evil in Pakistan,” says author Anee Muskan, who is only 24.
In her book Anthem of Hope, Muskan writes: “This whole scenario was the magma and the volcano was yet to erupt. The injustice displayed by the riots is something incorporated within our system. It isn’t defendable but in the name of those chaotic riots innocent individuals suffered as well.”
The book will be published later this month by Hope for Light Ministries Pakistan with the support of the Jeongneung Brotherhood, a Korean charity that helps Christians.
The book documents these tragic and sometimes unsavory events in Pakistan, with minority Christians and Hindus on the receiving end of both Islamic fundamentalists and state machinery
This book is dedicated to the two church guards including Akash Bashir present at the time of the suicide attack on St. John’s Church. The Vatican has accepted him as a Servant of God, paving the way for the first saint of the Islamic republic. Akash was one of at least 19 people who died in the attacks that also left more than 70 wounded.
Police had detained two suspects, Babar Noman, a garment worker, and Hafiz Naeem, a glass cutter, but an angry mob forcibly took them away and lynched them. The men were later cleared of any involvement in the bombings.
An anti-terrorism court on Jan. 29, 2020, acquitted all 40 accused in the lynching case, all of them Christians except one Muslim, after they paid "blood money" to the victims' families amounting to 25 million rupees (US$134,800). They received the compensation money from Pastor Anwar Fazal, the most popular Christian televangelist in Pakistan.
The book documents these tragic and sometimes unsavory events in Pakistan, with minority Christians and Hindus on the receiving end of both Islamic fundamentalists and state machinery.
According to the Lahore-based Center for Social Justice, at least 85 persons have been killed extrajudicially since the promulgation of strict blasphemy laws by Pakistan’s former military ruler Zia-ul-Haq in the 1980s.
Angry mobs lynched two people and injured two in four cities of Pakistan between December 2021 and March 2022.
“The tragedy somehow affected every Christian nationwide. The prisoners were abandoned as local Christians tried to avoid the blasphemy allegation"
The book tells the stories of 14 families of imprisoned Christians including two who died allegedly due to a lack of access to medical treatment. They were provided with legal aid by the Catholic bishops’ National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP).
Muskan says she felt connected to these families, both marginalized and persecuted.
“The tragedy somehow affected every Christian nationwide. The prisoners were abandoned as local Christians tried to avoid the blasphemy allegation,” she said.
“Even in my college, students avoid sitting next to me and a teacher of Islamiat [Islamic studies] proclaimed that the blasts [at the churches] were justified because the victims were Christians.
“While many credit the televangelist for the freedom of inmates, the support of the Catholic Church and the NCJP staff was forgotten. This book is an attempt to tell these untold stories.”
