Pakistan: A Christian tortured to death by the police
A 35-year-old Pakistani Christian was tortured and killed when interrogated by the police in a police station in Lahore, capital of the province of Punjab, in eastern Pakistan. According to the Pakistani newspaper The Nation, quoted by Fides, the man had been arrested on November 25 for “selling alcoholic beverages and drugs,” an accusation firmly contested by his family.
When contacted by Fides, Fr. Francis Nadeem, provincial superior of the Capuchins in Pakistan, described the Christian community’s turmoil after “yet another case of hasty execution”. The members of the deceased man’s family protested loudly outside of the police station, seeking to force their way into the building.
This drama came while the country was still in shock at the assassination of the young Christian couple Shahzad Masih and Shama Bibi, burned alive in the province of Punjab on November 4, by several hundred Muslims who falsely accused them of blaspheming against the Koran (see DICI no. 305, dated Nov. 21, 2014). Since then, the young couple’s family has asked for government protection because of the threats being made against them to force them to withdraw their complaint.
Also in the province of Punjab, all the Christian families of a village in the district of Sahiwal were forced to abandon their homes because of threats from the Muslims who accused one of them of having married a young girl from their community. Fearful for their lives, and without the police help they had asked for, the nine Christian families, 25 people altogether, left their homes and businesses. According to the press agency Fides, this is the third time in just a few weeks that Christian families in Punjab have been forced into exile under similar conditions. The other two cases took place in the districts of Sargodha and Narowal.
(sources: apic/fides/eda – DICI no. 306 dated Dec. 5, 2014)
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