Four Jaish men held for church attack

Four members of a banned militant group, the Jaish-e-Mohammed were detained yesterday in Sialkot for an attack at a Christmas day church service in Daska which killed three girls.

The four arrested activists belong to the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Shahid Iqbal, a senior police officer in the Sialkot region where the attack took place, said.

"We have arrested four men. They had apparently received training in armed activity, possibly at a centre run by the Jaish-e-Mohammed in the southern Punjab," Iqbal told a foreign news agency.

He also added that he could not as yet release any further details about the men, who were being questioned about the attack and their links to militant groups, although one source said among those held was a cleric who allegedly called for Christians to be killed.

The cleric, who uses only the one name Afzar, was detained because he allegedly made hateful, anti-Christian remarks three days earlier in a sermon at a mosque in Daska district, not far from the attack site, police said. However, there was no evidence to link him directly to the blast.

Afzar's son, Attaullah, was also detained. The two have openly supported Jaish-e-Mohammed, a violent, anti-India organisation with ties to the Al Qaida network, said Mohammed Riaz, a police officer in Chianwala.

However, the group, outlawed by Pakistan in January said it did not carry out the attack. "We did not assign anyone to do this," its spokesman, Mufti Abdul Raouf, said.

Riaz said the cleric and his sons were suspected of being trained at a Jaish-e-Mohammed camp.

The attack on the church in Daska, a town near the central Punjab industrial city of Sialkot, left three girls dead and at least 10 others injured. The incident took place on Wednesday, as assailants hurled explosives into a Presbytarian church just after 8.30pm, when an evening service was being held on Christmas Day.

The three victims killed in the attack were all young girls, standing in a row close to the place where the explosives, believed to be grenades, landed. One of the victims has been identified as Uzma, aged 14.

The assailants were said to have reached the church wearing 'burqas', disguised as women to ward off suspicion. "They were wearing coloured shalwars under the burqas", a policeman posted near the church stated.

Women are traditionally not searched or subjected to questioning by male policemen, following traditions that fiercely protect the privacy of women.

"Three people have been killed and 10 others were injured when unidentified men threw explosives into a church in a village," said police officer Mohammed Ashraf in Daska, speaking over the telephone.

The incident marred the celebration of Christmas for the Christian community across the country, and brought a swift end to festivities in the Sialkot area as news of the killings began to spread.

The murder of the three girls brings to at least 18 Christians killed during the year in militant attacks. At least as many foreigners have also died in similar attacks, apparently targeting westerners and any group seeing as affiliated to them. There have been four other deadly attacks on Christians in Pakistan this year. In the most recent on September 25, gunmen entered a Christian welfare organisation's office in Karachi, tied seven employees to their chairs and shot each in the head.

In the past, Christians within the country have never faced violence at the hands of orthodox religious groups or militant forces. An attack during Christmas was widely feared, in view of incidents earlier in the year.

Police was posted at every church in the Punjab, but proved unable to prevent the Daska incident.
Peter Joseph, a leader of the Christian community in Daska said "We now celebrate even our most joyous occasions in fear." He added that "a single policeman is no use against such dangerous killers."

A spokesman for police in Lahore meanwhile said "it was almost impossible" to have set in place more elaborate security arrangements, given the large number of churches dotted across the province.

The incident also highlights the fact that militancy remains a threat, despite a lull of almost three months since the last such attacks.

The victims of the latest tragedy were buried in Daska yesterday, amid scenes of intense mourning. About 2,500 people, a crowd several times the number of the church's usual congregation, gathered for a memorial service for the girls, who were 6, 10 and 14 years old. Angry Christians also staged a protest in Sialkot, demanding greater security.

At least two of those still in hospital are meanwhile stated to be in critical condition, with the Punjab chief minister and governor both mourning the attack and the new toll on human life extracted by the killers.

Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali condemned what he called the "dastardly attack" and vowed to bring those responsible to justice. The assault, he said in a statement, "was carried out by those who wanted to foment religious and sectarian strife in the country."

A ministry of interior spokesman labelled the attack "an act of terrorism."