Thursday, May 21, 2009
By Waqar Bhatti
While life in a Christian slum area in Taiser Town, Sector 35-C, has returned to normal, the graffiti that led to violence which resulted in the killing a teenager, injuring several others, and the torching of several shops and homes in the vicinity, is still clearly visible on three or four churches in the locality.
People in the Christian colony say that their lives have been changed since April 22 this year when one morning they saw provocative slogans written on the walls of their worship places. Their ensuing protest had turned into a full-fledged battle with Pakhtoons living nearby.
“On April 22, some young boys saw provocative graffiti on the walls of our main church. As they were discussing who might have done it, people from other parts of the colony also came over, and reported similar graffiti on churches of their area too,” Danish, an ice-seller, told The News.
He said that only women and children were in their houses when the graffiti was discovered and they started gathering in an open ground adjacent to the main church in the locality. “Soon, there were hundreds of people, mostly women and children. They chanted slogans against those who had desecrated their worship place but they were unarmed as nobody in a minority locality dares to carry firearms,” he said.
According to Danish, while people of the locality were protesting, two men came over and attacked two Christian boys by shooting at one and hitting the other with an iron rod. “This infuriated the protesting youth and they started pelting the opponents with stones. The opponents retaliated by shooting at them,” he said, adding that following the shooting from the opponents, the protestors scattered and ran for cover to protect their lives.
Patras, a tailor by profession and a resident of the colony, claimed that after the firing, men entered homes in the area, burnt houses, shops and cabins and tried to kidnap women.
“The help arrived in the form of political activists. They were heavily armed and they returned the fire and protected us. Had they not been here, all our homes would have been burned, our valuables would have been stolen, and our women would have been kidnapped,” Patras claimed.
Many others in the locality were also full of praise for the political activists, saying they came for their help and protected them.
For the grandparents and mother of 12-year-old Imran Masih, who sustained a bullet wound and died in the hospital when he was returning home from school, however, April 22 was the ugliest day in their lives. Their child, who had nothing to do with any kind of politics, died for no fault of his own, his grandfather and mother said while holding Irfan MAsih’s younger siblings in their laps.
During the visit of the area, everything appeared normal, except for the graffiti on the walls of churches that was clearly visible and readable despite efforts to hide it with spray paint. A sole mobile van of the Rangers was also seen, parked at the entrance of the colony.
“These Rangers’ personnel are the only guarantee of our protection and we feel safe until they leave the area. Some political activists have also assured us of protection but they don’t remain present here all the time,” said Qayyum, another resident whose tyre-repairing cabin was burnt down by arsonists on April 22.
On the other hand, people in another locality adjacent to the Christian locality have quite a different tale to tell. They believe that they were targeted by an ethnic group by inciting the Christians against them.
“On that day, somebody wrote provocative slogans on the Church in the Christian area and they started protesting against the Pakhtoons although we had nothing to do with the graffiti. They started beating some Pakhtoons in the area, burnt their shops, hotels and some outsiders also started firing at us,” Zafar, a Pakhtoon living in the area, said. “Actually, the provocative slogan on the church was written by the same group, whose armed men reached there, incited Christians against us and even started a war against the Pakhtoons.”
“We have nothing to do with the Taliban as there are no extremists in the area. Only labourers, drivers and small vendors live in the Pakhtoon locality,” another Pakhtoon, Zargul, said.
They said that it was a conspiracy to target Pakhtoons in Karachi as the same was happening elsewhere in the city where labourers, drivers, tea-shop owners, bread-makers and vendors were being killed by the ethnic group by declaring them Taliban.
(International The News)
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