Around 50 Christians, including women, from Chiragh Mohallah in the main Landi Kotal Bazaar gathered at a small church built inside their secluded and congested residential colony for their Sunday services. The main gate of the colony and the church remained open all during the Sunday services and sermons and none of the worshippers had any fear while they loudly sang their ‘geeth’ and clapped hands with the rhythm of a tabla played by teenage Youeail Ilyas, a class-8 student of a local school.

All the worshippers, especially females, were dressed in colorful attires and were fully engrossed in their prayers. Some women were seen consoling their little babies they were holding in their laps while reading from the Bible as others had their heads bowed in respect while Father Ilyas was delivering his sermon. Perhaps there was no time restriction as worshippers would join the services in the middle of the sermons and ‘geeth’.

One thing was clearly visible during the almost two hours of Sunday services among the ‘tribal’ Christians and that was fearlessness. “We enjoy complete religious freedom and never felt threatened while attending our weekly prayers in the church,” Ms Aneela, a worshipper, told Dawn soon after the end of Sunday services.

“We enjoy complete religious freedom and never felt threatened while attending our weekly prayers in the church located at the main Landi Kotal Bazaar,” says Ms Aneela, a worshipper

She said that she not only attended prayers at the church in her colony, but also would regularly go to a private school to teach and had never felt any intimidation from the local community.

Built in 2007, the church at Chiragh Mohallah could accommodate a maximum of 50 worshippers at a time and Ms Aneela argued that the space inside the church was getting limited with the increase in ‘population’ of their colony. Around 20 Christian families are currently residing at Chiragh Mohallah which was named after one of the elderly Christian resident of Landi Kotal.

The church has floor sitting arrangement for worshippers as it has no furniture due to paucity of financial resources. Rashna Shakeel, a 12th grade student in a local girls college, was also among the Sunday worshippers and she also expressed her full satisfaction over the religious freedom. “We have full liberty in offering our prayers and attending to church services and have never been stopped from fulfilling our religious obligations,” she told Dawn.

Arshad Masih, an executive member of Pakistan Minorities Alliance and a resident of Landi Kotal, told Dawn that the church was built on self-help basis and had so far received no financial assistance from any official quarters. “We raised money for construction of the church from our own meagre resources and at times we had to borrow construction material from local market on credit,” he said.

Arshad Masih said that the Christian community never felt insecurity while going to their worship place and it enjoyed cordial relations with the local residents. “We also never felt any resistance from the local community during the construction of our church,” he added.

He said that not a single family had migrated from his colony due to insecurity. He said that the local political administration too had always been cooperative and assured the local Christian community their full protection and religious freedom.

He, however, insisted that the colony was getting congested with the passage of time and it was due to limited space for living that some of the newly-married couples had shifted to Punjab in recent past.

Arshad Masih was recently awarded Lungi (the status of a tribal elder) by the Khyber Agency political administration as part of the Fata Secretariat’s plan to issue Fata domiciles to tribal Christians after their over a decade long living in tribal areas. He, however, argued that Fata Christians were still not entitled to buy personal property inside Fata despite being recognised as legitimate residents of the region.

He said that the Christians also needed a community centre for their social gatherings. “We have a culture of mixed gatherings during our religious congregations and other social and cultural events for which we need a separate community centre as mixed gatherings are against the local culture and tribal values,” he said.

Chaudhry Akhtar Zaman, a local community leader, told Dawn that they had a plan to convert the existing church into a community hall and build a new church on top of the existing building. He said that the Fata Secretariat had only recently approved a grant of Rs2.5 million for the building of church at the proposed site, but they were still awaiting release of funds.

Mr Zaman too was not comfortable will the living space inside Chiragh Mohallah and demanded of the federal government to allocate wide space for their living. “We also need spacious living quarters with opportunities for recreation for our families,” he said, adding that Christian families residing in congested government quarters in Jamrud tehsil too were facing similar problems.

He said that church in Jamrud was smaller than that of Landi Kotal and in fact a room of a house of local Christian was converted into a church.

He urged the federal government and Fata Secretariat to devise a policy to entitle the Christians of tribal areas to buy their own properties and construct their personal houses along with worship places.

According to reports obtained from Kurram Agency, around 500 Sikhs from different parts of the country along with a small number living in Sadda took part in three-day celebrations of Baba Guru Nanak at Thala Sahib Gurdwara in Ibrahimzai area of Lower Kurram.

Diyal Singh and Sanjan Singh who had come from Hasanabdal to participate in the celebrations in Kurram Agency told Dawn that the religious festivity was revived only two years ago after the security forces de-notified the area following a military operation.

They said that the local residents had made all the arrangements for peaceful observance of their rituals.

Published in Dawn, August 7th, 2016