Rights group condemns church vandalism in Pakistan, calls attacks on Christians ‘deliberate’

Islamabad: A leading minority rights group has condemned the vandalism of a church in Pakistan’s Punjab province, where a cross was broken and a Bible desecrated, describing the act as a deliberate attempt to humiliate the Christian community amid a growing pattern of attacks on religious minorities across the country.

The Voice of Pakistan Minority (VOPM) mentioned that on Sunday, Tak Memorial Church, in the village of Preme Nagar in Lahore district of Punjab, was vandalised, calling it an act that appeared less like “mischief” and more like a deliberate message to Christians that “you are not safe, even in your place of prayer”.

“This attack wasn’t only against bricks and wood. It was an assault on the most basic promise a state owes its citizens: the right to worship without fear. Every time a place of worship is violated, it doesn’t just injure one community — it chips away at the idea that people of different faiths can live with equal dignity. And when the sacred book of a minority is desecrated, it sends a chilling signal that their sacredness is considered disposable,” VOPM stated.

According to the rights body, local leaders and community members condemned the vandalism as a violation of religious respect, peace, and tolerance.

“Even when an incident is described as ‘isolated,’ it lands in a countrywide reality where religious minorities have repeatedly faced intimidation, violence, and collective punishment — sometimes triggered by blasphemy allegations, sometimes by mob frenzy, sometimes by extremist incitement. In that context, an attack on a church is not simply vandalism. It is part of a pattern that forces minority communities to live as if normal life can be interrupted at any moment — by a rumour, by a threat, by a crowd, by one person with hate in his hands,” the VOPM stressed, highlighting the atrocities against minorities across Pakistan.

Asserting that justice cannot be symbolic, the rights body called on Pakistani authorities to identify whether the attacker had support, handlers, or ideological backing, and prosecute the case transparently, not quietly. Additionally, it demanded protection for churches and minority neighbourhoods not just after an outrage, but before the next one and accountability for anyone who incites religious hatred, online or on the street.

IANS