Three young Christian women accused of blasphemy in Karachi
The incident occurred in the city’s predominantly Christian Farooq-e-Azam district. After their arrest and release, the victims went into hiding at an undisclosed location. The false charges provoked the reaction of radicals.
Asia News reported that charges of desecrating the pages of the Qurʾān saw three young Christian women, including two minors, placed under arrest.
It was later discovered that none of the charges were true, but by then the news had spread across their Karachi neighbourhood, provoking a violent reaction by local Islamic radicals who forced some 200 Christian families living in the area to abandon their homes to save themselves.
In Pakistan the accusation of blasphemy – even without evidence – triggers action by Muslim extremists. Thankfully, Christian clerics were able this time to intervene quickly and mediate the affair, which ended peacefully.
One of the clerics, Fr Saleh Diego, a member of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan (CBCP), told AsiaNews that “police released the young women, who now live at a secret location for security reasons.”
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