LAHORE: The Punjab police have been placed on high alert in view of worship and prayer programmes of the Christian community at churches across the provincial capital and the wider province.
Inspector General of Police Punjab Abdul Karim has issued orders to Regional Police Officers, District Police Officers and other senior police officials to make security at churches more effective.
The IG Punjab directed that supervisory officers personally check the security arrangements at churches and at important and sensitive locations. Additional police contingents and snipers are to be deployed at sensitive churches.
He said teams of the Dolphin Squad, the Police Response Unit and the Elite Force should ensure effective patrolling around churches, while police officers and personnel deployed on duty should remain extremely alert and keep a close watch on miscreant elements.
Abdul Karim further directed that search and sweep operations continue around churches, Christian settlements and sensitive locations.
The IG Punjab also appealed to religious scholars, the Christian community and members of peace committees to play their part in promoting interfaith harmony, brotherhood and peace.
Places of worship belonging to religious minorities in Punjab have been the target of serious attacks over the past two decades, and the province’s security posture around churches is shaped by that record. The 2013 twin bombing at All Saints Church in Peshawar, the 2015 attacks on two churches in Lahore’s Youhanabad neighbourhood, and the 2023 mob violence in Jaranwala — in which churches and homes were burned following a blasphemy allegation — remain the reference points for security planning.
The Jaranwala episode in particular changed the operational assessment. It demonstrated that the principal threat to Christian settlements in Punjab is not only from organised militancy but from rapidly assembled mobs, in which the critical variable is the speed of the initial police response rather than the strength of a static guard at a building.
That is reflected in the composition of the deployment ordered. Dolphin Squad and PRU units are mobile, motorcycle- and vehicle-based response formations designed for rapid arrival; Elite Force provides armed capability; snipers address a different and more specific threat model. Search and sweep operations around residential areas — rather than only around church buildings — indicate an assessment that the surrounding neighbourhood, not just the place of worship, is the protected space.
Two things are worth watching in how this alert is implemented.
The first is duration. High-alert postures are resource-intensive and tend to degrade after the first few days as personnel are redeployed. The security of Christian congregations in Punjab is a year-round requirement, not an event-driven one, and the meaningful indicator is whether static and mobile coverage persists after the immediate programmes conclude.
The second is the appeal to peace committees, which is the least visible and arguably the most important element of the order. Punjab’s district peace committee structure — bringing together clergy of different faiths, local elders and police — functions well in some districts and exists only on paper in others. Where it works, it provides the early warning that prevents an allegation from becoming a mob. Where it does not, the police learn about a gathering when it is already outside a church.
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