{"id":1436,"date":"2023-09-08T09:10:11","date_gmt":"2023-09-08T09:10:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/08\/religious-leader-shot-for-declining-to-recite-islamic-declaration\/"},"modified":"2023-09-08T09:10:11","modified_gmt":"2023-09-08T09:10:11","slug":"religious-leader-shot-for-declining-to-recite-islamic-declaration","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/2023\/09\/08\/religious-leader-shot-for-declining-to-recite-islamic-declaration\/","title":{"rendered":"Religious leader shot for declining to recite Islamic declaration"},"content":{"rendered":"


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The Rev. Eleazar Sidhu was shot in Jaranwala, Pakistan on Sunday, Sept. 3, 2023. <\/span> | Akmal Bhatti for Morning Star News<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

LAHORE,\u00a0Pakistan \u2014<\/strong> A pastor was shot and wounded by hardline Muslims on Sunday evening in Jaranwala, Pakistan, a week after Islamist slogans were written on the walls of his church building, sources said.<\/p>\n

The Rev. Eleazar Sidhu, pastor of a Presbyterian church in Kukranwala village in the Khanuwana area of Jaranwala tehsil, Faisalabad District, said the assailants ordered him to recite the Islamic creed before shooting him. He was returning home to Rehmat Town with an assistant after pastoral visits to church members when two bearded men stopped his motorcycle near the Khanuwana bus stop, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the attackers pulled out a pistol and asked me to recite the Islamic\u00a0Kalima, [profession of faith],\u201d Pastor Sidhu stated in the First Information Report (FIR) filed at the Saddar Police Station in Jaranwala. \u201cWhen I refused and instead started to recite the Apostles\u2019 Creed, the man opened fire, resulting in a bullet wound on the upper half of my chest [on shoulder]. The assailants fled after the attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unknown persons on Aug. 28 had vandalized the walls of his church with Islamist slogans that, translated into English, read, \u201cMuhammad is Allah\u2019s last prophet,\u201d \u201cHere I am at your service, O Messenger of Allah,\u201d and \u201cVicky is accursed,\u201d referring to the 34-year-old pastor\u2019s nickname, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was conducting early morning prayers in the church when a female member informed me that someone had smeared the church walls with Islamic slogans,\u201d Pastor Sidhu said. \u201cWe immediately called the police, who got the walls whitewashed in their [officers\u2019] presence. I also registered a case against the unknown vandals.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pastor Sidhu said he had received threats after police helped him remove the graffiti.<\/p>\n

\u201cThree days later when I was returning home after picking up my son from school, we were stopped by some unidentified bearded men,\u201d he said. \u201cThey threatened me, saying that I will be \u2018deleted from the world\u2019 in the same manner in which I had removed the graffiti from the church walls.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said the man who opened fire on him on Sunday was among those who had threatened him.<\/p>\n

The pastor said that four Presbyterian churches were among the 21 church buildings that were\u00a0attacked by Muslim mobs<\/a>\u00a0in Jaranwala on Aug. 16, after two Christian brothers were accused of desecrating the Koran.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy congregation was already fearful after the attacks in various colonies in Jaranwala, but they panicked when our church walls were vandalized on Aug. 28,\u201d he said. \u201cHowever, the timely intervention of the police and deployment of personnel had instilled some sense of security in the village.\u201d<\/p>\n

Minorities Alliance Pakistan Chairman Advocate Akmal Bhatti condemned the attack on Pastor Sidhu, saying it had increased fear among Christians in Faisalabad District.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thank God for saving the pastor\u2019s life,\u201d Bhatti told Morning Star News. \u201cThe doctors have removed the bullet after a successful operation on Sunday night. Eleazar is out of danger now, although he had lost a lot of blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

The atmosphere in the Kukranwala Christian settlement was already tense after the vandalism on the church walls, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cKukranwala is a relatively new Christian settlement comprising 200-250 families,\u201d Bhatti said. \u201cThe police have deployed some personnel there for security, but we demand stern action against the perpetrators behind these incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n

Court issues notice<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lahore High Court Justice Asim Hafeez on Monday ordered the Punjab Province government to respond to a petition seeking the formation of a judicial commission to investigate the Jarawanla riots.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bishop Azad Marshall, president of the Church of Pakistan, filed the petition seeking the judicial inquiry into the mob violence against Christians in Jaranwala on Aug 16.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe court has ordered the Punjab government to submit its response on Sept. 11,\u201d Marshall said. \u201cWe hope that the high court will consider our concerns regarding the investigation and will form a judicial commission to conduct a thorough and transparent probe.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said Punjab police chief claims of a \u201cforeign conspiracy\u201d behind the riots and the alleged blasphemy that incited them raised concerns in the Christian community about the transparency of investigations, thus compelling the call for judicial oversight to reveal the facts.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe judicial inquiry should also ascertain the causes of such mob attacks, fix responsibility on the officials concerned and propose measures to curb these incidents,\u201d Marshall said.<\/p>\n

Muslim mobs incited by the hardline Islamist party Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) attacked churches and homes of Christian residents in Jaranwala on Aug. 16. Multiple churches were set on fire and homes and businesses of Christians were ransacked for hours while police were silent spectators, triggering condemnation across the world.<\/p>\n

Pakistan ranked seventh on Open Doors\u2019 2023 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian, up from eighth the previous year.<\/p>\n

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Morning Star News<\/a> is the only independent news service focusing exclusively on the persecution of Christians. The nonprofit’s mission is to provide complete, reliable, even-handed news in order to empower those in the free world to help persecuted Christians, and to encourage persecuted Christians by informing them that they are not alone in their suffering.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The Rev. Eleazar Sidhu was shot in Jaranwala, Pakistan on Sunday, Sept. 3, 2023. | Akmal Bhatti for Morning Star News LAHORE,\u00a0Pakistan \u2014 A pastor was shot and wounded by hardline Muslims on Sunday evening in Jaranwala, Pakistan, a week after Islamist slogans were written on the walls of his church building, sources said. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[]},"categories":[43],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1436"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1436\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cccfornews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}