A court in Pakistan has jailed an Imam or prayer leader for five years for inciting hate against a rival sect, officials said Wednesday.

Maulana Abubakar a prayer leader was arrested in February in Kasur district, Punjab, some 50 kilometers (31 miles) south of Lahore, for making a speech against the rival minority Shiite sect, a prosecutor told Agence France Presse.

Pakistani Christians held funerals amidst tight security Tuesday for the victims of twin Taliban suicide attacks that targeted churches two days earlier in the worst attack on the minority group in over a year.

Seventeen people died as a result of the suicide bombings in the Youhanabad district of Lahore, with more than 70 wounded. 

Some 5,000 Christians rallied in the Pakistani city of Lahore Monday, blocking roads and shouting anti-government slogans in a second day of protests against twin Taliban suicide bombings of churches that killed 14 people.

Sunday's attacks in the Youhanabad neighbourhood of the eastern city sparked mob violence in which two other suspected militants were killed, with Christians smashing up cars and a bus station in a rare show of anger from the persecuted minority group.

Pope Francis on Sunday condemned two suicide attacks on churches in Pakistan and accused the world of "seeking to hide" the persecution of Christians.

"It's with pain, much pain that I was told of the terrorist attacks against two Christian churches in Lahore in Pakistan, which have caused numerous deaths and injuries," the pope said after his weekly Angelus prayer in Rome.

Fourteen people were killed and more than 70 injured when two Taliban suicide bombers attacked churches in Pakistan's Lahore on Sunday, sparking mob violence in which two other suspected militants died.

Up to 4,000 Christians later took to the streets of the eastern city, many armed with clubs as they smashed vehicles and attacked a city bus station in a rare show of anger by the beleaguered minority.

A suicide bomber killed five people near police headquarters in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore Tuesday, an attack claimed by a Taliban faction as revenge for the execution of their comrades.

The blast hit just meters from an entrance to the police headquarters in the heart of the city, sending a column of black smoke rising above buildings.

While last week's attack on French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo sparked global outrage, dozens of people in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar paid tribute Tuesday to the brothers who carried out the murders. 

Though small in scale, the event was indicative of the anger that portrayals of the Prophet Mohammed can ignite in some parts of the Muslim world, particularly in Pakistan where tough blasphemy laws make insulting the Prophet a crime punishable by death.

Pakistani police in the eastern city of Lahore Wednesday baton charged dozens of blind people protesting against the government for failing to implement an official quota for government jobs.

A group of up to 70 blind men had gathered in front of the local press club around noon on the International Day for Persons with Disabilities, demanding the government uphold its two percent quota for the handicapped.

At least seven people were killed on Tuesday when Pakistani police clashed with followers of a fiery preacher in the eastern city of Lahore, hospital officials said.

The clashes involved supporters of Canadian-Pakistani Tahir-ul-Qadri who held a major anti-corruption march last year prior to the May 2013 election that saw the country's first democratic handover of power.

A bomb exploded in a bustling food market in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore on Thursday, killing one person and wounding 13 others, officials said.

The blast hit Anarkali bazaar in the old city area of Lahore, Pakistan's second-largest city and capital of relatively peaceful Punjab province.