Mob of 80 Muslims sacks Hindu temple over blasphemy row
Police said the mob attacked the temple in Rahim Yar Khan in Punjab province Wednesday afternoon following the release on bail of a young Hindu boy accused of blasphemy.
“Some 70 to 80 protesters then attacked and smashed the windows of the temple,” Ahmed Nawaz, a police spokesman from the district, told AFP.
The boy had earlier been arrested over rumours that he committed blasphemy, a hugely sensitive issue in Pakistan where insults against Islam and the Prophet Mohammad carry harsh prison sentences and the death penalty in some instances.
The country’s strict blasphemy laws have been disproportionately used against religious minorities in the past, including the Christian community with critics arguing they are frequently abused to settle personal scores.
The attack was just the last in a string of assaults on Hindu places of worship in recent years, including an attack late last year that saw around 1,500 people overrun and set fire to a temple in northwestern Pakistan.
https://punchng.com/pakistan-mob-sacks-h...phemy-row/
Police said the mob attacked the temple in Rahim Yar Khan in Punjab province Wednesday afternoon following the release on bail of a young Hindu boy accused of blasphemy.
“Some 70 to 80 protesters then attacked and smashed the windows of the temple,” Ahmed Nawaz, a police spokesman from the district, told AFP.
The boy had earlier been arrested over rumours that he committed blasphemy, a hugely sensitive issue in Pakistan where insults against Islam and the Prophet Mohammad carry harsh prison sentences and the death penalty in some instances.
The country’s strict blasphemy laws have been disproportionately used against religious minorities in the past, including the Christian community with critics arguing they are frequently abused to settle personal scores.
The attack was just the last in a string of assaults on Hindu places of worship in recent years, including an attack late last year that saw around 1,500 people overrun and set fire to a temple in northwestern Pakistan.
https://punchng.com/pakistan-mob-sacks-h...phemy-row/
teachings of the Bible are so muddled and self-contradictory that it was possible for Christians to happily burn heretics alive for five long centuries. It was even possible for the most venerated patriarchs of the Church, like St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, to conclude that heretics should be tortured (Augustine) or killed outright (Aquinas). Martin Luther and John Calvin advocated the wholesale murder of heretics, apostates, Jews, and witches. - Sam Harris, "Letter To A Christian Nation"