By Stefan J. Bos, Chief International Correspondent Worthy News
ISLAMABAD (Worthy News) - A pastor in Muslim-majority Pakistan says he has been shot and injured after Islamic graffiti was removed from his Presbyterian church in an eastern district where last month, angry Muslims destroyed scores of churches and homes.
Footage obtained by Worthy News on Monday showed Pastor Eliezer Sidhu, better known as Pastor Vicky, lying on a stretcher in an overcrowded room at Civil Hospital Faisalabad.
Doctors are treating him for two gunshot wounds on the right side of his body, including a bullet injury to his shoulder, Worthy News learned.
Pastor Vicky said he told police in Faisalabad that he was heading home with his son on a motorcycle after leading prayers in the city's Presbyterian Church in the Rehmat Town area when a gunman targeted him.
He was allegedly forced to recite an Islamic phrase praising Allah and Islam's Prophet Muhammad before he was shot by the attacker, who fled the scene.
The pastor also described Sunday's shooting incident to police from his hospital bed, officials confirmed.
He told authorities the assailant and another man had "first intercepted him three days ago and threatened to kill" him for allegedly insulting Islam's Prophet Muhammad.
POLICE INVESTIGATION
Area police officials confirmed to the media that an investigation into the attack was underway.
The pastor said in his written police complaint that unknown men had written Islamic slogans on the front walls of his church last week in violation of local laws, and he was able to get them removed with the help of area police. "Since then, I have been receiving death threats and been falsely accused of blasphemy," he wrote.
"I call on authorities to ensure my safety and that of my Christian community so we can live in this country without fear. I demand the criminal involved in this attack and his supporters be brought to justice," Pastor Vicky added.
No one claimed responsibility for the assassination attempt, but well-informed Christian sources linked the shooting to the militant Muslim group Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP).
The group allegedly incited thousands of Muslims to storm a Christian neighborhood in the district's impoverished Jaranwala town on August 16.
The mob torched and ransacked at least 24 churches, several dozen smaller chapels, and scores of homes in Jaranwala, Worthy News reported at the time.
TLP has denied wrongdoing, and its supporters have demanded to end criminal procedures against the roughly 160 Muslims detained over the violence.
"TRAGIC MIRROR"
Pakistani human rights investigator Farrukh H. Saif told Worthy News that the shooting of Pastor Vicky in Faisalabad "tragically mirrors the recent Jaranwala incident."
He said it is "worth noting that Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan appears to be pursuing a disturbing agenda. They desire to remove churches and Christians from not just Faisalabad but also Jaranwala and nearby areas."
Farrukh added that "such intentions raise serious concerns about the safety and freedom of religious minorities in these regions," impacting thousands of Christians.
Additionally, Muslims "burnt thousands of Bibles, causing deep hurt to the sentiments and feelings of Christians worldwide. Every Christian in Pakistan felt pain, fear, and anger upon witnessing the Bible reduced to ashes," Farrukh added.
In recent days, Farrukh's Emergency Committee to Save the Persecuted and Enslaved (ECSPE) began distributing Bibles and humanitarian aid among Christians in the Jaranwala area, the group said.
However, human rights groups say attacks are spreading, with churches being targeted with graffiti containing pro-Islam slogans in several areas of Pakistan. Critics say tensions have accumulated partly because of controversial legislation that provides for the death penalty for blasphemy against Islam.
In recent years, hundreds of people have been detained under the controversial blasphemy laws, many of them Christians.
Although nobody is known to have been executed by authorities yet, many languish for years in prison, and scores of people were lynched or otherwise killed over blasphemy allegations, according to data seen by Worthy News.