Pakistani Punjab CM announces restoring 9 of 22 burnt churches post Mob violence

Pakistani authorities have so far been able to restore nine churches out of 22 burnt down by a violent mob over blasphemy allegations last moth in the country’s Punjab province, the state’s caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi said on Wednesday.
Over 6,000 people burned down 22 churches and 86 homes of Christians in Jaranwala town of Faislabad on August 16 on desecration of Quran allegations. The mob was led by a radical Islamist party– Tehreek-i-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). Following the incident, police arrested around 200 people for attacking the churches and Christian houses.
“The renovation of nine churches has been completed in Jaranwala while the remaining 13 will be done in next two weeks,” Punjab caretaker chief minister Mohsin Naqvi said while presiding over a meeting in Lahore. Naqvi had promised to restore the churches within a week following the incident but failed to do so. The CM on Wednesday also formed a team comprising three provincial ministers and senior officers to visit Jaranwala meet the Christian leaders and submit its report at the earliest. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) fact-finding mission’s report, at least 24 churches and several dozen smaller chapels as well as scores of houses were torched and looted in a series of brutal mob-led attacks against the local Christian community on August 16 on allegations of blasphemy against a Christian man. It says the mob attack on Christian worship places, their residences, and the cemetery was part of a “larger hate campaign against local Christians” and questioned the open involvement of radical Islamists and the complicity of police in the incident.