Ahmed Raza of Punjab Province’s Vehari District was accused of beating his classmate 17-year-old Christian student Sharoon Masih, to death on Aug. 27, 2017. He was freed on bail on January 8. Raza beat Sharoon for drinking water from a glass used by all students in the classroom. Raza considered Sharoon an “unclean” Christian (Sharoon was the only Christian in the class).
A report by Morning Star News claimed that the deceased’s father Ilyasab Masih said that the Muslim students were witness to the beating which left his son dead, but they later changed their story. Masih also said Raza’s family had also offered him more than $27,000 to settle the case, which he had refused.
Apparently, the police filed a weak FIR and left several gaps in its investigation which helped Raza to get a bail.
The news report quoted prosecuting attorney Allah Dad Khan who said, “A police First Information Report (FIR) and post-mortem report left several gaps that enabled Raza to obtain bail on January 8 from the Lahore High Court’s Multan bench. The FIR drafted by police states that Sharoon’s father had witnessed the accused beating his son, though Masih was not present at the time of the attack, Khan said. The FIR states that in the course of Raza kicking and punching Sharoon, he hit him fatally in the abdomen, Khan said.
“However, the post-mortem report states that there were no torture marks on the deceased’s body, therefore the defense claimed that Sharoon had not died of the beating,” he said. “It’s quite clear that the police and the medical officer deliberately left gaps in the FIR and the post-mortem report to benefit the accused in the trial.”
Khan said it was unfortunate that Raza will eventually go free due to the weak FIR, which police registered in the absence of any legal representation for the deceased’s family. Masih said Raza’s release brought shock and grief to the family, and that he was losing hope for justice for his slain son. Masih, who works at a local wood-cutting factory on a meagre salary, said that he was disappointed with the aid offered by various Christian organizations, church bodies and government officials.
It is to be noted that majority of the Christians in Pakistan are poor and work as labourers or do menial jobs for a living. Some of these Christians have roots in Hindu religion (mostly Dalits or other lower caste Hindus) but when Pakistan was formed in 1947 after India’s Partition, they converted to Christianity to avoid persecution by the Muslim community. However, things only got worse for this minority after dictator Zia-ul Haq, embraced Islamic militancy in Pakistan to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. Muslim militant mobs killing Christians, attacking their churches or houses were few in the 1980s and 1990s, but increased in number and became more violent after 2001 after the U.S-led assault on Afghanistan.
As per Dawn’s report published on March 16, 2015, ‘on Aug 9, 2002, gunmen threw grenades into a chapel on the grounds of the Taxila Christian Hospital in northern Punjab, killing four including two nurses and a paramedic, and wounding 25 men and women. In November 2005, 3,000 militants attacked Christians in Sangla Hill and destroyed the Roman Catholic, Salvation Army and United Presbyterian churches. In February 2006, churches and Christian schools were targeted in protests over the publication of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons in Denmark, leaving two elderly women injured and many homes and properties destroyed. On June 5, 2006, a stonemason named Nasir Ashraf working near Lahore was assaulted by Muslims when he drank water from a public facility using a glass chained to the facility. The Muslim mob beat Ashraf, calling him a ‘Christian dog’. In August 2006, a church and Christian homes were attacked in a village outside Lahore over a land dispute. Three Christians were seriously injured and one was missing after some 35 people burned buildings, desecrated the Bible and attacked Christians.
Discussion about this post