KARACHI: Minorities protest against attacks on churches
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Aug 11: The All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA), in protest against the recent attacks on a church and missionary school, has announced that it is organizing special prayer meetings in churches across the country on Aug 15.
This was announced by APMA Sindh chief and former member of the Sindh Assembly, Saleem Khursheed Khokhar, at a press conference at the mausoleum of Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah after he and other members of the minority community, including former MPAs Eng Gianchand, Malak Atta and Bherulal laid a wreath at the Mazar on Sunday.
They demanded that all the individuals who carried out the attacks on the institutions belonging to the minority communities be immediately brought to book and awarded exemplary punishments according to the law.
They also demanded that security measures be beefed up at the houses of worship, hospitals and schools belonging to minorities, and that security also be provided at the areas where minorities lived, so that the sense of insecurity that was fast spreading among the community members could be checked.
They demanded that compensation be given to all victims — heirs of those who have been killed or injured — and that the government should arrange for proper medical treatment of the injured.
They said that the father of the nation, in his speech to the Constituent Assembly on Aug 11, 1947, had made it clear that everybody — people belonging to the majority and the minority communities — would be equal citizens of Pakistan and would be free to practice their beliefs. They said that they had come to the mazar on Aug 11 to mark that speech of the Quaid.
They said that it was unfortunate that the country had been ruled for nearly three decades by unelected dictatorial regimes, which, to prolong their unjust rule, had divided the nation along communal, sectarian, ethnic, provincial, clan and biradri lines and had formulated laws that were discriminatory towards minorities and other marginalized sections of society.
Besides the special prayer meetings, APMA will also organize a demonstration at the press club on the same day.
