Press Statement

National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP), a Human Rights body of the Catholic Church wants to plead to the Government of the Punjab and the Federal government of Pakistan to take strong measure to protect the churches and religious minorities in Pakistan and strongly condemn the attacks on the Churches in Youhanabad Lahore.

Today (March 15, 2015), during the Sunday services a twin blast on the highly attendance churches occurred in Youhanabad Lahore, largest Christian locality with one million people. The Christian community of Pakistan has been targeted by extremists during the past. According to the initial report the churches have been threatened time and again. The church administration of Youhanabad pleaded to the government and police for security but due to limited number of the police force, the churches were provided with minimum security. Although the TTP splinter group Jamatul Ahrar claims responsibility for the twin church attack in Youhanabad Lahore. But the fact remains that the mentioned minimum security at the time of attack were busy watching a cricket match either than performing their duty of protecting the churches. As a result of this negligence many Christian people have lost their life and families their loved ones.

 

National Director, Rev. Fr. Emmanuel Yousaf Mani and Executive Director Cecil Shane Chaudhry said in a joint statement that TTP has murdered many Christians. We as a nation need to stand with the families of the victims and stop extremism jointly; this misuse of religion as an excuse to kill minorities should be stopped.  We demand that provincial and federal government take serious and effective measure to protect minority communities of Pakistan. They further emphasized that political will to take necessary protection measures should be operationalized in letter and spirit of Chief Justice historical judgment on protection of religious minorities through which terrorism can be eliminated from Pakistan society.

Fr. Emmanuel Yousaf Mani                                                                                Cecil Shane Chaudhry

National Director                                                                                                    Executive Director