Author:
Publication: MSNBC
Date: September 26, 2002
URL: http://www.msnbc.com/news/812682.asp?0dm=N327N
Black flags flew over churches and
Christian areas in the Pakistani city of Karachi on Thursday, as Pakistan's
small Christian community mourned the massacre of seven charity workers.
Sadness At The deaths at the hands
at two unidentified gunmen was mixed with fear, and widespread anger at
the government of President Pervez Musharraf for not protecting them.
"Down with Musharraf," a group of
about 200 protesters wearing black armbands chanted as they marched through
the narrow lanes of the Christian slum of Essa Nagri in Karachi. "Hang
the culprits who killed innocent Christians."
On Wednesday two gunmen burst into
the office of a Christian charity, tied up and gagged the employees before
shooting them in the head at point blank range with a pistol.
Six of them died instantly, one
died later in hospital while an eighth man was in a coma on Thursday battling
for his life with a serious head wound. All were Pakistanis.
The attack was the fifth against
Christian targets in Pakistan in the last year. The attacks, which have
killed about 40 people, have been blamed on Islamic militants angered by
Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terror.
Pakistan's 1.6 million Christians
- about one percent of the population - are often among the mainly Muslim
country's poorest people, many working as cleaners or menial workers.
"We are second-class citizens in
Pakistan, we don't have any rights, no protection," said Faris Ayub, one
of the protesters. "Our families are not secure here. I will leave this
country as soon as I will get a chance."
Three Days Of Mourning
Christian leaders announced three
days of mourning, beginning on Thursday. In Karachi, shops, schools and
churches were closed in Christian-dominated areas, with extra police standing
guard outside many venues.
Church leaders said on Wednesday
they were hoping to stage a joint funeral service for most of the victims,
most likely at the weekend, although the fact that some were Protestant
and others Catholic could complicate matters.
On Thursday, it was time for anger
and fear as well as grief.
"They don't consider us human beings
and only Muslims are allowed to live in this country," said Ayub, a male
nurse, who said he feared more attacks.
Interior Minister Moinuddin Haider
vowed on Wednesday to track down the killers, who made a clean getaway
after the attack.
But Liaquat Munawwar said he and
four other members of the Christian charity MASS were prepared to take
drastic action if something was not done quickly.
"If the government fails to arrest
the culprits within the next three days, we will commit suicide in front
of the governor house," Munawwar said.
Last October masked gunmen sprayed
automatic gunfire at worshippers in the city of Bahawalpur, killing 17
people in the worst massacre of Christians in Pakistan's history.
In March, a grenade attack on the
Protestant International Church in Islamabad killed five people, including
the wife and daughter of an American diplomat.
On August 9, four Pakistani nurses
and an attacker were killed in an attack on a Christian hospital in the
town of Taxila. Four days earlier six people were killed by gunmen who
burst into a school for the children of foreign missionaries in the hill
town of Muree.
"We have faced attacks on our churches
and other places for the last many years," said Shahzadi Michael, a local
government official in Essa Nagri.
"The government has failed in providing
security to us," she said. "We don't want to take the law into our own
hands but we are being forced to think otherwise."