MUZAFFARABAD, Aug 10: AJK police have taken special measures to protect the small Christian community in Azad Kashmir in the wake of two terrorist attacks in the neighbouring towns of Murree and Taxila, and suicide by three attackers allegedly involved in one of the incidents, a senior police officer said on Saturday.
Deputy inspector-general of the AJK police Sheikh Tahir Qayyum told Dawn he had ordered maintenance of strict security around a shanty dwelling of the Christians in the state capital to prevent any untoward incident.
Some 60 Christians, most of them labourers, are living along the right bank of River Neelum in Shaukat Lines locality of the AJK capital, which is home to army offices and installations.
The DIG said the police had been alarmed about their security after the attacks on Christians in the two neighbouring Pakistani towns in the past one week.
The DIG said that the Christians had converted a small house in their dwelling into their Church where they worship every Sunday.
Father Ilyas, an employee of the United Nations Military Observers Mission in Muzaffarabad conducted the services, he said.
“I have also ordered surveillance of the Christians dwelling by plainclothesmen,” the DIG said.
He said Azad Kashmir was generally safe from terrorist attacks, but the recent sneaking in of three terrorists into the territory had prompted the police to take special measures.
Three persons, believed to be involved in last Monday’s attack on Murree Christian School, had crossed into AJK through a suspension bridge on River Jhelum on Tuesday last, where they were intercepted by the police and the locals because of their suspicious movements.
However, they blew themselves up with grenades in the river. Two of them were swept by the violent current while the body of the third one was instantly recovered by a villager, which was later handed over to the Punjab police.
AJK police had constituted teams to search the remaining bodies along their side of the river from the place of the Tuesday’s incident up to the Mangla Dam in Mirpur district.
The DIG said that one of the teams had spotted and recovered one more body from the river on Friday near Azad Pattan Bridge which was also handed over to the Punjab police.