A Roman Catholic priest who received death threats after his church took over a school near Okara, was gunned down by Wahabis Saturday, police said. Gunmen broke into Father George Ibrahim's home in Ranala Khord, a small military town near Okara in the Punjab province, shortly after midnight. The priest had received several death threats after the province returned the school to Catholic Church ownership, according to Shahbaz Bhatti, head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance. "He wanted to denationalize the school, which had been the property of the church and when he got it back he received threats saying 'you will pay a price for the school,'" Bhatti said.
Last August Punjab police detained about 27 Wahabi terrorists including Khadim Hussain Dhalu, secretary-general of Sipah-e-Sahaba, after they attacked a Christian school in Murree and a Christian hospital in Taxila. Three nurses were killed in the attack in Taxila. Six people were killed in the Murree school attack. Other terrorists arrested, belong to Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Jhangavi, an offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba. Police also arrested Qari Ghulam Haider, a member of Lashkar e Jhangavi who confessed he was planning attacks against churches in the Punjab province. In March 2002, five people were killed and forty-five injured when a church in Islamabad was attacked by Sipah e Sahaba. In October 2001, sixteen people were killed and many injured when Wahabi terrorists attacked St. Dominic's Church in Behawalpur. Shafiq-ur-Rehman, an activist of the Sipah e Sahaba was arrested and provided information about the six masked men who had carried out the Behawalpur attack.
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