What happened

On the morning of 16 August a mob reportedly several thousand strong descended on the City of Jaranawala in Pakistan’s Punjab province supposedly in response to alleged Islamic blasphemy committed by two Christian men. By the end of the day at least 24 churches and around 100 Christian homes in both the city and nearby villages had been completely destroyed and many others severely damaged.

A fact finding Mission by the Human Rights Commission for Pakistan, which visited the scene the day after the riot suggested that this was a pre-planned attack, rather than simply tensions erupting between Christian and Muslim communities. Churches were specifically targeted and whole streets in the city’s Christian Town area destroyed, while elsewhere individual Christian homes in mixed streets had been pointed out and targeted. There was also a specific targeting of Christian symbols with Bible and hymn books ripped up and taken into the street to be burned, while mobs armed with sledgehammers were pictured removing crosses from the roof of churches. There is also evidence which may indicate that some of the perpetrators perhaps intended to religiously “cleanse” the area of its Christian population. Red bottles containing an unknown chemical that was strong enough to melt iron girders holding up the roofs of churches and Christian houses, were thrown on their roofs, seemingly to ensure that they could not easily be rebuilt.

What really happened

What sparked this had all the hallmarks of a staged incident. At 5am on the day of the riot, two Muslim women found a pages of the Qur’an with lines crossed out, tied to a gas meter at a crossroads. Also attached were the names and contact details of two local Christian men, including their national identity card details. The women found the Christian men, who took the documents home, and were shortly afterwards surrounded by a mob demanding to see the pages of the desecrated Qur’an.

By 6.30 am the leaders of a local Islamic party, thought to be Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) a political party formed to “protect” Pakistan’s Islamic blasphemy laws had sought to register a case against the two men with the police. At 7am as a large crowd was gathering outside the police station the police gave in and registered the case. Meanwhile Christians began leaving the city, with those unable to flee hiding in the sugar cane fields, and in some instances being sheltered by courageous Muslim neighbours, particularly from the minority Shi’a community. By 9.15am churches and homes were being destroyed and set on fire. By 9.20AM the mosque near to where the Qur’an pages had been found began calling over its loudspeaker for people to gather and take action against the Christians, other mosques then joined in. By 10am boats arrived reportedly bringing several thousand young men, including many children aged 10-15, who one Christian eyewitness described as moving through Christian homes “as though they had been trained to do so”.

Why did it happen

A Christian journalist working for the national newspaper DAWN, who personally knew some of those affected in Jaranwala, summarised the questions local Christians were left asking:

"Apart from the sheer horror of watching people loot and burn homes while the police stood around, most people raised pertinent questions: how could a mob equipped with torches, sledgehammers and corrosive chemicals assemble so fast? Who were the children and men in trawlers [i.e. large fishing boats] brought to these neighbourhoods; and who told them which homes to burn? And finally, how can collective punishment occur in such a targeted and destructive manner without any interference from the authorities?"

The first thing that needs to be said is that this was by no means the first such incident suffered by Christians in Pakistan. There have been a series of such incidents since 1997 when a mob destroyed 13 churches and 775 Christian homes at Shantinagar in the Punjab. That incident was sparked by a Christian attempting tried to file a police case after a Muslim police officer threw a Bible on the floor while raiding the home of a Christian. An accusation of Islamic blasphemy was then made against local Christians, which led to a large group Muslims attacking the predominantly Christian village.

However, a more immediate cause in this instance relates to the reaction which the Asia Bibi case sparked among some sections of Pakistan’s conservative Muslims. Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five living in Pakistan’s Punjab province was arrested in 2009 following a dispute with fellow farm workers who claimed that as Christians were “unclean” she couldn’t drink from the same water as them. An accusation of Islamic blasphemy followed, which in Pakistan carries a mandatory death penalty and in 2010 she was sentenced to death. Salman Taseer, a liberal Muslim, who was governor of Punjab Province courageously spoke up for her and called for reform of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. This was itself regarded as an act of Islamic blasphemy by some conservative Muslims and in 2011 he was assassinated by his police bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri. Qadri’s execution for murder in February 2016 was followed by large scale protests across Pakistan, calling for him to be recognised as an Islamic martyr and a national hero. They also called for the immediate execution of Asia Bibi – BEFORE her appeal to Pakistan’s Supreme court had been heard.

The protests which followed Qadri’s hanging were not so much led by radical Islamists, but by Barelvis, sometimes misleadingly referred to in the west as “Sufis”. In Pakistan, traditionalist Islam has two main expressions: Barelvis who engage in devotional practices such as prayer to Muslim saints and singing hymns of veneration (na’at) to Muhammad, and Deobandis a reform movement originating in the nineteenth century which rejects these, and from which the Taliban originally emerged.

Qadri’s death had a significant radicalising effect on a proportion of Pakistan’s Barelvi community. It was from these that a political party emerged known as Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) which sees its mission as defending the honour of Muhammad and calling for the extension of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws. It has engaged in violent protests as well as standing for election. In 2018 it secured 1.9 million votes in the Punjab provincial elections – and it is fair to say that it has proved a major political headache for the Pakistan government, which has alternately appeased it, banned it and then unbanned it.

In 2018 when Pakistan’s Supreme Court unexpectedly granted Asia Bibi’s appeal, effectively finding her not guilty, the TLP staged major protests and one of its leaders stated that the killing of the Supreme Court judges who had freed Asia Bibi was legitimate. The government eventually agreed a compromise with the TLP, by which TLP supporters who been arrested would be freed, the TLP would be allowed to mount a legal challenge to the Supreme Court’s decision and Asia Bibi would be placed on Pakistan’s Exit Control List – preventing her leaving Pakistan. The latter was effectively a green light for her to be murdered  - as a number of those previously accused of Islamic blasphemy had been. However, within days, the government began arresting thousands of TLP supporters and charging them terrorism and sedition, while Asia Bibi was allowed to escape abroad. In 2021 the Pakistan government banned the TLP – saying it would treat it the same way as the Pakistan Taliban and al Qaeda, but a few months later lifted its ban. 

In January this year a bill implementing one of the TLP’s main demands – an extension of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws to include comments deemed to denigrate, not just Muhammad, but also his wives and companions was introduced into Pakistan’s national assembly. That bill was finally enacted on 8 August – a week before the anti-Christian riots at Jaranwala. The TLP was already active in Jaranwala, in fact immediately following the riots DAWN published a photograph of a TLP banner hanging across a street adjoining Christian Town – the main area which was targeted in the riot. As noted above, it appears to have been the TLP which sought to register the Islamic blasphemy charge at 6.30 in the morning, just 90 minutes after the crossed out pages of the Qur’an had been found; According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan videos of the attack have been published online showing what appear to be members of the TLP at different locations in Jarnawala inciting other Muslims to violence against Christians, as well as other videos which continue to incite violence against Christians both in Jaranwala and elsewhere in Pakistan.

The Pakistan Human Rights Commission report discretely observes that the factors such as these “indicate that there could be larger political and social motives behind the attack.”

The new radicalisation affecting Pakistan

In fact, there are indications, that what we are seeing is a new radicalisation wave in Pakistan. In the 2018 general election the TLP emerged as the fourth largest party with 2.2 million votes as well as two seats in a provincial assembly. Pakistan’s political parties have responded to this, by seemingly adjusting their positions to be more pro-blasphemy law. In November 2021 the Chief Minister of Punjab Province, a member of then Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) Party was reported to have hinted that he would be willing to form a political alliance with the TLP, which the government shortly afterwards unbanned. While even the secular Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) led by Benazir Bhutto’s son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, which has historically been the party most sympathetic to the Christian minority, has been affected. In a recent Lahore by election it hung up banners describing itself as “the defender of the prophet”, effectively signalling its support for the blasphemy laws.

In other words, what happened at Jaranwala was an expression of the pressure that Pakistan’s Christians are now facing from all sides. As the Lindisfarne Centre recently reported, al Qaeda has re-emerged in Afghanistan where it is running a training camp for suicide bombers from the Pakistan Taliban, who in 2013 bombed All Saints Church in Peshawar, and have recently regrouped right across Pakistan. At the same time, a new radicalisation is happening among significant parts of the Traditionalist Barelvi community. Now with even the secular PPP engaging in virtue signalling its support for Islamic blasphemy laws – the question is – where do Pakistan’s Christians turn to for support?