The Caravan — February 2018

55

bearing the cross · reportage

FEBRUARY 2018

way for the CLF volunteers carrying

the bishop’s body, the young men sud-

denly changed their course. They ran,

coffin still on their shoulders, towards

a van in a small alley next to the school,

loaded the coffin into it and drove off at

top speed towards Faisalabad.

Akram Gill, another cousin of Shah-

baz’s, told me that the Pakistan Muslim

League government had instructed its

Christian leader Peter John Sahotara

to ensure that the funeral be a quiet

affair. It wanted Joseph to be buried

in Khushpur rather than in Faisal-

abad—since the former was a small

village, they believed it would get less

media attention. The government had

also sent police to the village to ensure

the funeral went without a hitch. “But

we were not going to let that happen,”

Akram said. “The spark that John Jo-

seph had lit would have to blow up and

we made sure it did.”

The CLF activists had kept planks

of wood in the van so they could cre-

ate a makeshift bridge over the nearest

canal, and avoid a main bridge which

the police were sure to use while chas-

ing them. They entered Faisalabad city

through a nondescript road and trans-

ported the bishop’s body to the Cathe-

dral of St Peter.

The arrangements for Joseph’s funer-

al had been decided on in advance. Tel-

evision footage from the cathedral that

day shows a large number of nuns and

priests preparing for the funeral amid

loud wailing from the people who had

come to pay their last respects. Howev-

er, the number of mourners had grown

too large for the priests and volunteers

to handle, and the crowd spilled onto

streets surrounding the church.

Emotions were

running high by

this time, and a

Christian youth

allegedly tore

down a sign car-

rying a Quranic

verse—he was

later charged

with blasphemy.

A mob of Mus-

lims barged into

Christiantown, a

Catholic-majority

ghetto of Faisal-

abad, and burned

down houses and

shops. Mean-

while, the mourn-

ers waited till the

bishop was buried

and then took out

a huge procession

in protest against

the blasphemy

laws. Over the

next week, the

protests would

spill into every

city in the coun-

try and culminate in a violent backlash

from the state.

Church leaders of every denomina-

tion in the country called on their

followers to join in the protests. They

added that the demonstrations should

be well organised and peaceful, warn-

ing that the memory of John Joseph

should not be sullied by violence. But in

Lahore, as over a thousand protesters

landed on the famous Mall Road, it be-

came clear that it would not be easy to

control the action. The marchers beat

their chests and shouted, “Bishop, tere

khoon se inquilab aayega” (your sacri-

fice will bring a revolution) and “ye C-

ian, B-ian band karo” (end the Sections

295 C, 295 B—of the law pertaining to

blasphemy). Bishop Samuel Azariah,

who was leading hundreds of members

of his congregation in the protest, told

me that a young man threw a stone at

a glass window of a building on Mall

Road. “Then it spiralled out of control.”

The police arrested over a hundred pro-

testers for vandalism, but the crowds

spilled onto other roads—Jail Road and

Main Boulevard—and by the time the

sun had set nearly 500 protesters had

been rounded up and jailed.

Reports of similar protests and ar-

rests came from Karachi, Faisalabad,

Multan and several smaller cities, and

the church leaders decided that they

needed to call another meeting. “We

realised that we needed to change

our strategy and that calls for repeal-

ing the law would only be met with a

backlash and severe threat from the

Muslim hardliners and the state,” Aza-

riah said. “We decided that from now

on, we would only ask for the law to be

amended.”

since the death of joseph, the Chris-

tian religious leadership has mostly

shied away from political matters. Even

Joseph announced to

the congregation that if

there was no bloodshed,

if there was no sacrifice,

the black law would

never be repealed. A few

hours later, he asked

Masih to drive him to the

courthouse where Ayub

had been sentenced to

death. Joseph got out

of the car, and, standing

in front of the court

building, shot himself in

the head.

ap photo