Security to be beefed up at churches for Christmas

According to police sources, the bulk of Christian community live in and around the eastern city of Lahore, where police said there were 433 churches.We will deploy 2,500 policemen, including sharp shooters, to provide security to them at Christmas, Nayab Haider, a police spokesman, told AFP.Lahore has suffered a series of attacks blamed on Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants, part of a nationwide campaign of violence that has killed more than 4,700 people since July 2007.Recent kidnappings of a US development expert and the son of assassinated politician Salman Taseer have heightened security fears in Lahore, a city of eight million and considered Pakistans cultural capital.We have placed 38 churches in category A, which are most sensitive, and among them, 20 are even more sensitive as we expect foreigners to visit these churches on Christmas Eve, Haider said.Traffic would be banned outside these churches, and each one assigned seven policemen and a sniper, he added.Police will also instal walk-through gates at the entrance of all churches to be manned by security staff, Haider said.He denied there was any specific threat to Christians at Christmas but said precautions were being taken on a general threat perception.Only three percent of Pakistans 174 million people are estimated to be non-Muslim.