LOWER DIR: Condemning the ransacking and torching of churches in Jaranwala town of Faisalabad district, the participants of a gathering attended by representatives of different communities here on Friday urged people to respect all worship places across the country irrespective of their faith, caste and colour.

The Centre of Excellence for Rural Development (CERD), a nongovernmental organisation, arranged the dialogue to promote tolerance and interfaith harmony among different religious communities.

Representatives of different religious groups, including Christians and Hindus, officials of the district administration, representatives of local government, human rights’ activists, members of district interfaith committee, male and female members of the district forum, local journalists and area elders attended the dialogue.

The participants expressed solidarity and sympathy with the Christian community and condemned the Jaranwala incident. They said no religion permitted desecration and disrespect of worship places and holy books of other religious groups. They termed the incident as un-Islamic and tantamount to defacing the religion Islam. They hoped the government would bring the elements involved in torching and ransacking of five churches in Jaranwala to book.

The speakers also urged the communities to work collectively for interfaith harmony and respect each other for a peaceful coexistence.

The dialogue, according to CERD project coordinator Riaz Mohammad Advocate, was designed to enhance mutual understanding among different religious communities and promote interfaith harmony so that peace could not be sabotaged.

INQUIRY SOUGHT: A resident of Ashari village of Toormang has demanded of the caretaker chief minister and the provincial secretary health to order an inquiry against the alleged refusal of the staff at the District Headquarters Hospital, Timergara, to conduct autopsy of his married niece, who was found dead at her house.

Talking to reporters here on Friday, Ghulam Sarwar said the hospital staff told them to take the body to a health facility in Swat for autopsy. Earlier, he said they had taken her body to rural health centre, Khall, but the autopsy could not be done there due to unavailability of a lady doctor.

LG BYPOLLS: District election commissioner Mohammad Iqbal on Friday said all arrangements had been finalised for holding the by-election on vacant village and neighbourhood councils in the district on Aug 27.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2023