{"id":26499,"date":"2017-12-19T10:21:36","date_gmt":"2017-12-19T10:21:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/?p=26499"},"modified":"2017-12-22T09:55:01","modified_gmt":"2017-12-22T09:55:01","slug":"bishop-hails-rapid-response-police-army-john-pontifax-acn-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/12\/19\/bishop-hails-rapid-response-police-army-john-pontifax-acn-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"PAKISTAN:Bishop hails rapid response of police and army  &#8211; John Pontifax ACN UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<style type=\"text\/css\"><\/style><h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>PAKISTAN<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<h2><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><strong><em>Bishop hails rapid response of police and army <\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">A Pakistan bishop in Quetta has praised the country\u2019s \u201ctruly heroic\u201d security services saying that had they not been so quick and decisive the death toll in Sunday\u2019s attack at a packed Methodist church could have run into hundreds.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Describing how the police and army were on the scene in Quetta \u201cin less than five minutes\u201d, Bishop Victor Gnanapragasam said the security services killed one of the jihadi bombers outside the church and injured the other as he approached the main entrance, where he detonated his suicide vest.<\/span><\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_26501\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-26501\" style=\"width: 268px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-26501\" src=\"https:\/\/www.acnmalta.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bishop-Victor-Gnanapragasam-268x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"268\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bishop-Victor-Gnanapragasam-268x300.jpg 268w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bishop-Victor-Gnanapragasam-600x672.jpg 600w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bishop-Victor-Gnanapragasam-768x860.jpg 768w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bishop-Victor-Gnanapragasam-914x1024.jpg 914w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bishop-Victor-Gnanapragasam-580x649.jpg 580w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bishop-Victor-Gnanapragasam-860x963.jpg 860w, https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/12\/Bishop-Victor-Gnanapragasam-1160x1299.jpg 1160w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 268px) 100vw, 268px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-26501\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><br \/><strong>Bishop Victor Gnanapragasam of Quetta<\/strong><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Bishop Gnanapragasam\u2019s comments to Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need came just after he attended funerals of several of the eight people reportedly killed in the blast.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Saying that at least 45 were injured, the bishop spoke of the pain and grief of the Christian community, adding that a number of the 30 still in hospital were in a critical condition.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Amid reports that nearly 400 worshippers were at the church, he said many lives had been saved by the security services, adding: \u201cThe police and the army frontier corps were truly heroic. They got to the church in less than five minutes.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cOne of them was wounded as he tried to stop the suicide bombers.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Bishop Gnanapragasam described visiting the wounded in hospital, including an 18-month-old boy who he said was covered in bandages from head to foot.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He said that one man had a punctured lung and was unable to attend the funeral of his wife killed in the attack.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cThe people are very frightened. We have had a lot of people crying. We have done our very best to console them.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">The bishop added: \u201cAll day, I have been asking myself: \u2018What do the attackers think they can achieve by killing innocent people?\u2019\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He said a week ago a warning had been issued about a possible attack against Christians but that the likely target was thought to be local Christian schools and other institutes rather than churches.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Describing a massive security build-up in the wake of the attack, the bishop said churches were being advised to bring forward Christmas Midnight Mass services to earlier in the evening.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He went on to say that police were calling on local Christians to identify people entering churches over Christmas as part of a security drive to keep extremists out.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">He called on people to pray for the dead, the wounded and their loved ones.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #000000;\">\u201cWe need your prayers, not just at Christmas time, but all year round because the risk is always there.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h5><span style=\"color: #000000;\"><em><strong>John Pontifax \u2013 ACN UK<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h5>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PAKISTAN Bishop hails rapid response of police and army &nbsp; A Pakistan bishop in Quetta has praised the country\u2019s \u201ctruly heroic\u201d security services saying that had they not been so quick and decisive the death toll in Sunday\u2019s attack at a packed Methodist church could have run into hundreds. Describing how the police and army&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":26501,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-e-newsletters"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v24.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>PAKISTAN:Bishop hails rapid response of police and army - John Pontifax ACN UK - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/acnmalta.org\/_oldsite\/2017\/12\/19\/bishop-hails-rapid-response-police-army-john-pontifax-acn-uk\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PAKISTAN:Bishop hails rapid response of police and army - John Pontifax ACN UK - Aid to the Church in Need (Malta)\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PAKISTAN Bishop hails rapid response of police and army &nbsp; A Pakistan bishop in Quetta has praised the country\u2019s \u201ctruly heroic\u201d security services saying that had they not been so quick and decisive the death toll in Sunday\u2019s attack at a packed Methodist church could have run into hundreds. 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A Pakistan bishop in Quetta has praised the country\u2019s \u201ctruly heroic\u201d security services saying that had they not been so quick and decisive the death toll in Sunday\u2019s attack at a packed Methodist church could have run into hundreds. 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