What Happened at Badaami Baagh on Saturday?

Pakistan is a strange country where anything can happen anytime. The country, ever since the US War on Terror started in the neighbouring Afghanistan, has been going through turmoil and the situation is getting worse every new day. The minorities in the country are being targeted by the fanatics as well as the people from different sects of Islam. Just a fewdays ago the Shia community was targeted in Quetta and then in Karachi and now the Christians were targeted in Lahore whereas a bomb blast occurred on the same day on a Sunni (Barelvi) mosque in Peshawar on Saturday.

The incident that I am going to focus in this piece is that of Lahore in which the Christian community had a blow and 170 houses were torched by a charged crowd in the Badami Bagh area. Badami Bagh is a busy place and a center of industrial activities but this Joseph Colony where the incident took place is a little away from the center of the market and is sandwiched from both sides by factories. Thousands of workers work in these factories and most of them are outsiders.

Two friends (the Christian one is named as Saawan Masih) used to drink together every night and had close friendship. It was their routine to drink together, quarrel at something and then be friends again in the morning. On Thursday night they had a serious fight that nobody is witness to and the very next morning the Muslim friend was at Saawan’s door with a few men and demanded to hand over Saawan to him as he had committed blasphemy the last night. This was a serious charge and though Saawan was not found at home, an FIR was launched against him in the Badaami Baagh Police Station under the Article 295 (C) of Blasphemy Law.

After a short while, Saawan’s house was stoned at by some men and the family immediately left the home out of fear. The contacted some of the Christian leaders and met Joseph Francis. Mr. Joseph is a religious leader and also a well-known figure in the political circles of Lahore. He decided to hand Saawan over to police SSP Sohail Sukhera was called by the Mr. Joseph at his office where Saawan was handed over to him after midnight. The SSP did not reveal the police station or wherever he was to keep Saawan because he was afraid that if the people would now it, they might even attack the police station where he was kept. He kept it a secret but the fatal error, as I should call it, was that he did not bother to cover the whole situation. Had he deployed a few policemen at the Joseph Colony as well, the incident that later happened may have been avoided.

The next day, the things looked suspicious in the area and the SHO of the area asked the Christian families to leave the place at the earliest. Within next two hours all the houses of the colony were vacated. This was just to avoid any sort of physical torture to any person but the assets of the residents were left on the mercy of the conditions. At around 1 o’ clock on Saturday, a crowd of around two thousand people attacked the colony. It is important here to mention that the colony only comprises of Christians and the place is surrounded from all sides with the factories. According to my sources, all the people who attacked the colony were the workers of these factories and no local took part in this malicious activity.

Within only a few minutes, almost all the houses were burnt in the area that total to around 170. This is shocking to note that during such a brutal activity, not a single resident was hurt and the only 15 people who got injured were all policemen. I think it will be unfair here if I do not appreciate the bravery of the policemen. Though it was the mistake of the officers of the same police department but the poor men who stood their ground under those conditions must be appreciated. However, they were not able to stop the people from torching a hundred and seventy houses of the poor minority. The number of policemen deployed was already low and it was almost impossible for them to tackle such a large and religiously motivated crowd.

A few shocking things that have surfaced so far are as follows:

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•       The entire chemical used in putting the colony to fire came from one factory only. The chemical lied there and all the mob had to do was to go there, pick the chemical up, spray it around and set the homes ablaze.
•         The same factory owner had contacted the residents of the colony a number of times to sell their houses to him but they had been rejecting the offer.
•         Police had the knowledge prior to the incident but was not able to avoid it from happening and it was only due to the criminal negligence. No doubt there were a few policemen deployed in the colony but the number was not adequate and tackling such a mob was no simple a deal.
•          A leader of a political party (not based in Punjab and trying tooth and nail to enter Punjab through any means) was in Lahore the last night and the whole matter was brought into his knowledge just one night before the incident took place but he didn’t do anything at all. In fact the same party was hyper active in condemning and immediately bringing the matter into the knowledge of the British Prime Minister.

It is also a fact that the Punjab Government was up to the task again and though the SSP had made a criminal negligence as mentioned above, the follow up of the matter was appropriate and immediately the government machinery came into work. The Chief Minister of Punjab Mian Shehbaz Sharif took the notice and within no time he suspended the relevant police officers and ordered an inquiry. More than 150 people were arrested by the Punjab police the very next day and on Sunday the Chief Minister along with some 10 MNA/MPAs of his party visited the place. He announced that the affected families will be given 200,000 rupees each and all the 170 houses will be constructed by the government. The amount of compensation was increased later on to 500,000 and last night MNA Hamza Shehbaz went to the colony and distributed the cheques among the families. There is definitely no compensation to the mental torture that the families there had to go through but at least there is some compensation to the loss that they had to suffer.

Chief Justice of Pakistan also too a Suo Moto action on the issue on Sunday and called the hearing on Monday. He displayed his displeasure over the inquiry report that the police had presented before him and rejected it saying that the report could not satisfy the court. He said that report does not put light on why the government didn’t do anything to keep the things under control when they had the prior knowledge of what was cooking in the Joseph Colony.

Protests were carried out throughout the country by the Christian community and at some places in Lahore and Karachi, they also went violent. But there was no serious damage done.

The Christians demand an immediate probe into the matter and ask the government to guarantee that no such incident ever take place with the minorities of the country. They appreciated the performance of the Chief Minister himself but showed utter displeasure over the conduct of the police and the negligence that led to such a serious ending. They opined that had Sohail Sukhera disclosed that Saawan was under police custody without letting anyone now of the exact place where he was kept, the situation might have cooled down as the people would have been pacified after knowing that Saawan was under arrest.

It is a good thing to mention at the end that the people arrested by the  Punjab Police are going to be tried under the same Article 295 (C) of the Blasphemy Law under which hurting the religious beliefs of any community is a crime and is punishable up to 10 years. Christians in Pakistan have always been peaceful and have been living in the country since 1947. A few incidents may have taken place but by and large the community has remained safe. Only during the past few years there have been repeated incidents of correct/incorrect allegations of blasphemy. The leaders of the community believe that the growing extremism in the country is not just limited to the minorities but these spineless murderers do not spare even the Muslims who do not believe in their (extremists’) brand of Islam.

The Nation reported: Bishop Dr Azad has said that the meeting with CM Punjab was positive and their all demands have been accepted. The senior Muslim religious leaders also gave their verdict today and said that Islam does not endorse this brutality. The meeting was headed by CM Punjab as well.

Thirty scholars from the Sunni Ittehad Council have decreed a joint fatwa against attack on minorities, declaring that onslaught on life and property of Christians is against Islam.

By Ali Xaidi