Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Punjab Government blamed for Gojra incident

Holding the provincial government responsible for the gory incidents in Gojra, opposition leader Ch Zaheer has strongly condemned the torture on and burning of the Christians.
In a joint press conference with Engineer Shahzad Elahi here on Tuesday, Ch Zaheer said the incident took place because of the indifference and inefficiency of the Punjab government. He alleged that the incident took place on July 30 and the situation got worse on August 3 but the provincial government failed to preempt the situation.
He said the government was making the DCO and the DPO scapegoats just to hide its inefficiency. He said the CM should have visited Gojra immediately after the incident, bringing those responsible to the book.
He said the president had ordered judicial enquiry into the incident while the Prime Minister had deployed Rangers for the security which reflected the complete failure of the provincial government.
Engineer Shahzad Elahi from the PML-Q said that the members of Christian community had not desecrated the Holy Quran. He said that the allegation against the community was an excuse to occupy a piece of land to construct a graveyard. He alleged that local PML-N president was involved in the incident and that was why the provincial government was hesitating to take action.
a conspiracy: Senior vice president Pakistan Muslim League and former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kusuri has said the Gojra incident is a conspiracy against Pakistan and the Islamic world.
The former foreign minister said the internal and external enemies of Pakistan were bent on defaming the country in the international community. He said this incident should not be taken as a local conflict but should be treated as an attack on the true religious harmony prevailing in Pakistan and the whole nation should unite to confront this malicious intent of defiling the country’s image.
He said such incidents had emerged in the past but when they were thoroughly investigated it was revealed that some elements played such dramas to seek wealth and their own selfish interests. He condemned the Gojra incident in the strongest possible way and said such elements could not bring any harm to Islam and the religious harmony in Pakistan. planned action: Last week’s attacks targeting the Christian community at Gojra were not a spontaneous reaction to allegations of blasphemy but were planned in advance, a fact-finding mission of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) revealed. The mission’s report, released on Tuesday, said announcements made from mosques in Gojra on July 31 urged the Muslims to gather and “make mincemeat of the Christians.” Witnesses told the HRCP that when they informed the police about the announcements, the police officials had also confirmed hearing the announcements.On the following day, August 1, around 1,000 people gathered in the town and marched towards the Christian Colony. A police contingent present in the neighbourhood did not try to stop the mob, which included a number of masked men. The witnesses said the attackers went about destroying Christians’ houses in a very professional manner, and seemed to be trained for carrying out such activities.

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