Pakistan: Following yet another church massacre, Christians call for safety
Pakistan: Recently, someone broke into a church in the Raiwind neighborhood of Punjab province, Pakistan, and committed a destructive crime that has alarmed the nation’s Christian population. According to a study, community groups and religious leaders have called for more safety for houses of worship and responsibility for those responsible for these hate crimes.
The assailant entered the church illegally and damaged the structure, according to information in the First Information Report (FIR). According to a report in International Christian Concern, the Holy Communion table was thrown, many windows in the church were broken, and precious objects including Bibles and worship books were ripped up and thrown on the ground. Additionally, the person had damaged musical equipment used in religious services.Following the incident, the church’s state amply shown intense animosity and violence. The church seemed “as if it had been hit by a sudden storm of hatred,” according to local Christians, who called the image devastating. The congregation has been severely affected emotionally, even though no one was there when the tragedy occurred, according to International Christian Concern.
The complaint was first filed against unidentified parties. However, a suspect has since been taken into custody by the provincial police, and an investigation is underway.The destruction of Bibles and other holy objects is seen by the Christian community as a direct attack on their identity, faith, and freedom to freely and securely exercise their religion. It goes beyond simple property damage. Christians in the area have voiced anxiety and worry about their safety, particularly as the new year gets underway. Stronger safety for houses of worship and responsibility for hate crimes have been demanded by religious leaders and community groups, according to the International Christian Concern research.
According to a different study, religious minorities in Pakistan are subjected to systematic discrimination and entrapment due to false accusations of blasphemy, mob violence, targeted murders, land grabs, forced conversions, arbitrary arrest, and destruction to property, including houses of worship.
Premi Bhil, a 15-year-old Hindu girl, was kidnapped from Sindh province on December 26. She was forced to convert to Islam, given the new name Kulsoom Sheikh, and married a married man who was over 30. According to a story in Sri Lanka Guardian, armed men abducted a Hindu mother and her little daughter from the Sher Shah neighborhood of Karachi on December 6, 2025.
In a same vein, armed men in Gujranwala, Punjab, shot and killed Pastor Kamran Salamat on December 5, 2025. This was Kamran Salamat’s second targeted assault after he was shot in September of last year and suffered leg injuries.
At least six attendees were injured when Bait-ul-Mehdi, an Ahmadi house of worship, was targeted during Friday prayers in Chinab Nagar, Punjab province, on October 10, 2025. On August 8, 2025, a crowd in Sahiwal, Punjab, assaulted up to 80 Christian homes. Many victims later experienced police abuse and were prosecuted under the Anti-Terrorism Act.According to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom’s Annual Report, 2025, 96.5% of Pakistan’s estimated 252 million people identify as Muslims (85–90% Sunni and 10–15% Shia), while only 3.5% identify as Christians, Hindus, or Sikhs, according to the Sri Lanka Guardian.In Pakistan, religious minorities experience systemic discrimination, harassment, entrapment in false accusations of blasphemy, physical assault, lynching, mob violence, targeted killings, land grabs, forced conversions, arbitrary detention, and property destruction, including their cemeteries and places of worship,” the statement continued.
According to the ‘Human Rights Observer 2025’ published in April of last year by the UK’s Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), there were at least 421 incidences of kidnapping and forced conversion of minority girls and women in Pakistan between January 2021 and December 2024. Two Sikh girls, 137 Christian girls, and 282 Hindu girls were among the fatalities.
Over the past ten years, dozens of blasphemy-related mob violence incidents have been documented in Pakistan; these incidents frequently result in the lynching of the accused, as was the case in 2021 with the lynching of Priyantha Kumara Diyawadana, a Christian Sri Lankan citizen employed in Sialkot, and in 2023 with Muhammad Waris at a Nankana police station. The lack of an efficient rule of law and the impunity of those who lynch the guilty contribute to a society in which such acts are accepted as commonplace.