Hundreds of churchgoers formed a human chain outside a Lahore church to show solidarity with the victims of a Peshwar church attack two weeks ago that claimed 100 lives. Crammed into the tiny courtyard of St. Anthony’s Church, as many as 200-300 people listened to a sermon by Mufti Mohammad Farooq quoting the Quran preaching tolerance for other belief systems. Father Nasir Gulfam stood shoulder-to-shoulder and hand-in-hand with Farooq after delivering a two-hour sermon inside the church that day and began the human chain that stretched outside and around the church and down the street. Participants held banners that read, “One Nation, One Blood.”
As part of an attempt to sensitize the public at large, the human chain was the second such event after a similar had been organized in Karachi last week outside the St Patrick’s Cathedral by an organization called Pakistan For All—a collective of citizens concerned about the growing attacks on minorities.
“Well, the terrorists showed us what they do on Sundays. Here we are showing them what we do on Sundays. We unite,” said organizer Mohammad Jibran Nasir.
