CHARSADDA: Policemen in uniform and plainclothes have been deployed at churches and houses of Christians here following the distribution of threatening letters on Monday, asking the minority community to convert to Islam or leave the area within 10 days, a police official said on Friday. “We have taken all security measures to protect the Christians living in Charsadda,” Headquarters DSP Sajjad Ali told Daily Times on the telephone. Ali denied that Christians were migrating to other areas due to security fears. Local Christian leader Chaudhry Saleem backed Ali’s statement, saying no Christian had moved from Charsadda district. “We are frightened, but no Christian family has moved to any other place,” he told Daily Times.
Saleem said that DSP Sajjad had assured the 600 Christians living in the district that the police would protect them against any harm. DSP Ali said the police were investigating the matter to find out about the persons who could have written the letter. “The letter was written in Urdu ... it seems that an immature person has written it because the writing style and language used is pretty bad. The Taliban are more sophisticated in such activities,” he said.
Prince Javed, president of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA) in Charsadda, said the letter had frightened the Christians, but no one had left the district so far. Meanwhile, APMA Chairman Shahbaz Bhatti told The Associated Press that several Christian families in Charsadda had already migrated to other places and others were contemplating the same.