(June 20, 2012) In Pakistan, Christian and minority Muslim leaders have called on
authorities to protect grave sites, following the recent desecration of a Christian
cemetery in Karachi. Police on Monday filed a preliminary report after vandals broke
crosses, damaged coffins and shattered the skull of one of the deceased, in a 25-year-old
cemetery in Kashmir colony, home to 14,000 Christians. Fr. Saleh Diego, the parish
priest, said the latest incident again suggested the involvement of gangs that have
tried to seize areas where Pakistani minorities are buried. “The locals built a wall
around the graveyard four years ago, after the gangs occupied most of the land. They
are trying to harass people and apparently have no respect for the dead,” said Fr
Diego, the diocese director of the Catholic Bishop’s National Commission for Justice
and Peace. Pastors and priests in the area raised their concern over the incident
during sermons on Sunday, he said, while community protection teams have visited the
cemetery and held discussions with locals in a bid to address the problem. The incident
follows a number of similar violations against the graves of deceased Ahmadis, a minority
Muslim community, regarded as heretical by orthodox Muslims