‘The first man who was shot on his forehead was my father. He died on the spot. They had clearly targeted him with a telescope,’ recalls Minhas Hameed, whose 75-year-old father was the first victim of the Gojra attack. There were others that followed – all from his family.
The attack on the Christian colony in Gojra, district Toba Tek Singh, on Saturday evening left seven people dead. All were members of Hameed’s family. His father was killed on Saturday morning, hours before the masked attackers, allegedly a group from Jhang, began torching the homes of Christians.
Residents of the colony say they heard gunshots on Saturday morning, but insist that local residents of Gojra were not armed and that guns only entered the picture when the masked men arrived at the colony on Saturday evening. At that time, other members of Hameed’s family were burnt alive as their house was set on fire along with 59 other houses in the colony.
