Francis Colony mob attack, PPP criticism test CM Najam Sethi
With the wounds of the Joseph Colony attack in Lahore barely filling up, Punjab has witnessed another attack on the Christian community. A Muslim mob attacked a Christian neighbourhood in Gujranwala and, as with the Joseph Colony attack, the charges and the police response appears frivolous. With Shahbaz Sharif out of the picture, the ‘good governance’ narrative towed by the younger Sharif is being untangled and the brunt is falling on the current caretaker Chief Minister Najam Sethi.
As details have emerged of the frivolous nature of the accusations that led to the mob attack in Gujranwala, it appears that Punjab, if not Pakistan as a whole, is headed for a much more polarized future. The reported clash was between a Christian boy and a local prayer leader over the ‘accusation’ that the boy was playing music on his mobile phone outside a mosque. The prayer leader raised clamour over Christians “disrespecting Islam” and one of those ever ready mobs ransacked nearby Francis Colony. The police, as is now habit, stood by and watched until things got serious. This was despite the new Inspector General of Punjab Aftab Sultan assuring the Supreme Count that “no such incident would occur in the future.” He said there had been 50 arrests for the Joseph Colony arson, while the responsibility had been fixed on one SP, a DSP and two SHOs. However, apparently the message is not going down deep enough in the police ranks who have stood by and watched as another gruesome mob attack was undertaken on Pakistan’s Christian community.
While the Muslim mob attack on Francis Colony in Gujranwala may have nothing to do with Sethi, who has barely stepped into his new hot seat, but the pressure will be on him to act meaningfully. Sethi of course has much more to deal with. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), which originally nominated him for caretaker CM, appears to have turned about face. Former PPP prime minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf has cast aspersions on Sethi’s neutrality for his refusal to fire retired bureaucrats on key positions in the Punjab hierarchy. It is the PML-N Senator Pervaiz Rashid that had to come to Sethi’s defense and vouch for his impartiality. Perhaps it is the Gujranwala incident that Sethi’s benefactors would see as closer to his heart, but the shrewder Sethi would do well to weather the political storm brewing about his caretaker CM-ship. Having criticized politicians and governments for their inaction in the casting couch a number of times, Sethi now sits in a seat of power, with the authority to make an impact. All eyes are now turned to the orator par excellence, if he can deliver for the minorities of Punjab and shrug off the political storm hovering around his temporary perch.