ICC Note:
Following another terrorist attack targeting Pakistan’s Christians, the Christian community of Peshawar still feels insecure. At the beginning of the month, terrorists from an off shoot of the Pakistani Taliban attacked a Christian neighborhood in Peshawar, killing one Christian and damaging several homes. The attack comes months after Christians in Lahore were targeted by the same group in a bombing at a public park where Christians were celebrating Easter. Will Pakistan finally take the appropriate steps and start giving both security and dignity to its Christian citizens?
09/20/2016 Pakistan (Daily Times) – Tears started rolling down his cheeks when the name of Samuel Masih came up during the conversation.
Mushtaq Masih, the brother of Samuel Masih who was killed by militants in the attack on Christian Colony Peshawar on September 1st 2016, still mourns the sad death of his brother. “Many government officials have visited us to condemn the brutal killing and express their sympathies but the family of my brother is yet to be paid the compensation amount,” he lamented.
He added that the deceased had left behind five children among whom two of his daughters had been married. “The family of my brother and even us after his death feel insecure in Peshawar,” he said.
There were around twenty houses while around 150 households in the Christian Colony and all of them had been living for the last so many decades even before the independence of Pakistan, he said.
“What was the sin of my brother who was killed brutally by militants as this was not the first attack on Christians as before many time minorities were targeted in Peshawar but the government failed so far to provide security to the minorities in Peshawar”, Mushtaq Masih said.
All Pakistan Hindu Rights Movement Chairman Haroon Sarbdiyal said that after the Christian Colony attack in Peshawar most of the minorities feel insecure.
He added that around 125,000 minority members lived in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa while around 70,000 lived in Peshawar.
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