Christians tied up and killed in Karachi office

Seven employees of a Christian charity were tied to their chairs, gagged and shot through the head in Karachi yesterday. The clinical murders appeared to obliterate Pakistan's claims to have clamped down on violent anti-Western extremists.

The assault by two unidentified gunmen on the Organisation for Peace and Justice – a Pakistani Christian group giving legal advice to the poor – was the sixth deadly attack on Christians since the President, General Pervez Musharraf, backed America's war against the Taliban and al-Qa'ida in Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, the President was boasting to the media that his security forces had brought the problem under control, not least by arresting nearly two dozen members of a militant group – Harakat ul-Mujahedin Al-Almi – suspected of several bombings earlier this year, including one that killed 11 French engineers in May. All but a "very, very few" of the main players were behind bars, General Musharraf claimed. Yesterday's bloodbath, which killed seven Pakistani Christians and left an eighth paralysed, suggests the issue is far from resolved.

The attack began when the gunmen burst into the charity's small, unmarked offices in a high-rise building in the centre of Karachi. According to the city police, they roped their victims inside a room, bound them, executed them one by one using a pistol and then fled. Eight bullet casings – one for each victim – were found at the scene. A ninth man was badly beaten but not shot.

"The dead bodies were found lying on chairs," said Syed Kamal Shah, the local police chief. "It appeared that they were forced to sit there. Their hands were tied and their mouths were also taped."

The shooting was the first of Christians in Karachi, although there have been several attacks on Westerners, including the suicide bombing of the engineers; the kidnap and murder of the Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and an attempted bombing of the American consulate.

Yet at least 36 people have been killed elsewhere in Pakistan in attacks on a Christian missionary school, a hospital, and two churches in the past year. Until 11 September last year, Christians – who make up 1 per cent of the Islamic republic's 120 million population – were largely left alone. When General Musharraf supported the American "war on terror", they rightly feared being a target of Islamists.

The President – who now lives under intense security for fear of assassination – vowed to keep them safe. Bishop Victor Mall, of the Multan diocese, Church of Pakistan, said: "Today's incident shows that the government has failed to protect."

The authorities in Karachi did not say whom they suspected of the massacre, although few doubted that it was the same vengeful forces as in previous attacks.

Last month, The Washington Post – citing Pakistani security sources – said attacks on Christians and Westerners in Pakistan were thought to be part of a co-ordinated campaign by Pakistani Islamic militants "linked" to al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. It said Pakistani intelligence had been told by two militant groups involved in the war in Kashmir that "trained elements" had split from their ranks to form anti-Western and anti-Christian "strike groups".

Why the Institute for Peace and Justice (Idare-e Amn-o-Insaf) was singled out over other Christian groups was unclear. Reports from Karachi say the charity, which is supported by Catholic and Protestant churches, has operated for 30 years and concentrates on campaigning for Karachi's army of poor on issues such as employment rights.

"We don't know how it happened," said an employee, Sakina Rahmat, as she choked back tears. "We have no enmity with anybody. How could this happen to us?" The group's magazine recently ran an article about Pakistan's harsh blasphemy laws. Christians oppose these, not least because they have been used by Muslims to justify seizing land from churches.