ISLAMABAD, PAKISTAN (BosNewsLife) — Thousands of Muslims burned down a Lutheran church as well as its school and adjacent homes in Pakistan Friday, September 21, injuring several Christians in violent protests against an anti-Islam film that elsewhere killed dozens of Pakistanis, church sources and rights activists told BosNewsLife.

In published remarks, Lutheran Bishop Humphrey Peter said a crowd of some 8,000 people, many of them carrying petrol, attacked the St.Paul Church complex in Mardan city in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province.

“The St.Paul Church, its school and the houses of the principal and pastor along with a vehicle were burned by a mob,” he said in a statement released by Pakistan-based rights group World Vision In Progress (WVIP).

Several people staying inside the church complex were beaten, added WVIP Executive Director Farrukh H. Saif.

Saif suggested that many more people could have been killed or injured in Friday’s church attack.

“Nearly 500 students are studying at the primary and secondary school of the Lutheran church. But nobody was there now because it was a holiday in Pakistan,” he told BosNewsLife.