” “The Catholic Church in Pakistan condemns yesterday’s assaults against the two Christian churches of Sukkur, driven by an alleged case of blasphemy, and reveals the negligence of the local police and points at the authorities, which are “unable” to promote respect and try to ignore the seriousness of the events. This piece of news was relayed by Asianews,which sent out a release today from the National Commission of Peace and Justice (Ncjp) of Pakistan, which condemns “the terrible breach of the law and the inability of the government to stop the misuse of religion which took place in Pakistan yesterday”. As is known, in the afternoon of February 19th in Sukkur, a city in the southern Sindh province, a crowd of some hundreds of Muslims assaulted and pillaged two churches, the Catholic St. Mary’s and the Pakistani Church of St. Saviour’s. The release, written by mgr. Lawrence John Saldanha and Peter Jacob, president and secretary general of Ncjp, recalls that such accidents are not unprecedented: “They are a sad memory of Shantunagar (1997) and Sangla Hill (last November)”. And it reads on: “An intentional negligence on the part of the police is a common aspect of these two episodes”. In the release, Ncjp points at the increase in the extremists’ assaults against religious minorities whose “causes lie in the heart of the country, the mass media, the textbooks, the speeches of some politicians”. Justice and Peace invites Christians to keep calm and “remain peaceful”.
