LAHORE: The recent attack in Joseph Colony, a Christian community neighbourhood, in Lahore's Badami Bagh area during which more than 178 houses were plundered and burnt has further tarnished the already tainted track record of the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz (PML-N) government in Punjab, according to a report published in a local newspaper on Monday.

According to some estimates more than 200 lives were lost during the past five years in Lahore alone to attacks on minority communities including the Ahmadis, Christians and Shias.

At least seven members of a Christians family were burnt alive in the Gojra incident in 2009 after violence erupted in the town over the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran.

The desecration allegation did turn out to be false eventually but the provincial government took no concrete steps then to root out the problem. Some militants were apprehended from the province but the cases were later dropped after the counter FIR's were filed naming members of the affected community for rioting.

Ten months later attackers targeted Ahmadi worhippers in Lahore killing around 80 people belonging to the minority community.

More recently in December last year unknown gunmen desecrated Ahmadi graves in Lahore in an act of intimidation and hatred against the fraught community.