KARACHI, Pakistan — As Taliban control hits pockets of Pakistan and threatens the nation’s stability, Christians worry their province could be the next to fall under Islamic law.
Violence April 21–22 near the port city of Karachi — nearly 700 miles from the Swat Valley, where the government officially allowed the Taliban to establish Islamic law in April — heightened fears. As members of a congregation erased pro-Taliban graffiti on their church in Taiser Town, near Karachi, armed men intervened to stop them.
Soon 30–40 others arrived and began to fire indiscriminately at the crowd; among those seriously injured were three Christians, including a child. Policemen and military forces arrested seven suspects and recovered an arms cache of semiautomatic pistols and a Kalashnikov assault rifle.
A legal advocacy worker said police stood by as a Taliban-assembled mob attacked the Christians.
A representative of the Muttahida Quami Movement regional party said that after firing on the crowd, Taliban fighters went through Christian houses, ransacked them and burned one down. He said they also burned Bibles and beat women on the street. Reports of two execution-style killings of Christians could not be verified.
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