Christian Woman in Pakistan Abused, Forced to Resign

Sanitation worker on verge of receiving benefits; in another village, church builders attacked.

SARGODHA, Pakistan, June 10 (CDN) — A Christian woman here said she has been falsely accused of theft, beaten, threatened with rape and forced to resign her job in a bid to keep her from obtaining full benefits as a regular government employee.

Razia Bibi, a 38-year-old sanitation worker known as Rajji of village No. 47-NB (Northern Branch), Sargodha, was due to obtain regular status as a government employee at Aysha Girls’ Hostel at the University of Sargodha at the end of May. On May 7, however, Muslim office worker Safia Bibi accused her of stealing 10,000 rupees (US$120) from her cubicle – and when Muslim hostel warden Noshaba Bibi learned of it, she called female police officers and ordered them to beat her until
she confessed, Rajji said.

“Lady police constables subjected me to inhumane thrashing with bamboo sticks and kept saying that I must confess or they would not spare me,” she said, adding that she was beaten for four hours in one of the hostel rooms. “I said that, being a Christian from childhood, I had learned not to steal, therefore I told them the truth, but it seemed they were bent on making me confess a crime I had not committed.”

Her comment about being a Christian and therefore not having stolen anything seemed to especially enrage Safia Bibi and Noshaba Bibi, she said.

“Hostel officials turned violent, and they called Haaser Khan, the chief security officer of the university, accompanied by two junior security guards, and ordered them to take me into a cubicle and take off my clothes and rape me,” she said. “I raised a cry for help, but there was no one to help me.”

Her husband, Nayyer Aftab, told Compass that someone informed him that his wife was in serious trouble at her workplace. Rushing to the girls’ hostel, he said, he found the security guards dragging his wife on the ground as she screamed for help. When Aftab asked why they were treating her this way, Khan charged him with his baton and left him injured on the ground, Aftab said. The chief security officer took Rajji inside.

“Both hostel officers, Noshaba and Safia, told me that Rajji had stolen 10,000 rupees, and that because she didn’t confess her crime the security guards were going to teach her a lesson,” Aftab said.

Aftab said he knew that his wife would not confess to theft even to spare herself from rape, and he pleaded with the two accusers to stop the security guards, promising that he would pay them the amount of the allegedly stolen money.

“At this both Safia and Noshaba ordered to bring Rajji out and not rape her,” Aftab told Compass. “They gave me an hour to make payment of the allegedly stolen amount.”

He said he went to friends and relatives to gather up the 10,000 rupees and gave it to Safia Bibi and Noshaba Bibi, but Aftab said they still compelled his wife to resign by forcibly obtaining a thumb print from the illiterate woman on a resignation statement.

Rajji said she had been happily looking forward to obtaining regular employee status.

“In three weeks I was going to become a regular employee as a sanitation worker at the university, but as I am a Christian, the Muslim hostel officers Safia and Noshaba wanted a Muslim regular employee after their hearts instead of me,” she told Compass.   

Noshaba Bibi initially refused to comment on the allegation that she falsely accused the Christian woman of theft in order to provide a job to someone of her choice. After repeated questioning by Compass, however, she became exasperated and used coarse language, yelling, “Yes, I have done it, do whatever you want!”

The Christian couple in the village in Punjab Province has an 8-year-old daughter and two sons, ages 9 and 5.

 

Christians Beaten, Jailed

In a village in southern Punjab Province, Muslim extremists on Saturday (June 5) attacked Christians trying to construct a church building, and then got police to file charges against them for defending themselves, according to the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance (APMA).

A club-wielding Muslim mob led by Muhammad Nazir Ahmed beat Christians who were laying the foundation for the church building in village No. 184/9-L, in Cheechawatni of Sahiwal district, seriously injuring several of them, said Javed Akber Gill, APMA district coordinator in Sahiwal.

Ahmed later enlisted Inspector Allah Ditta, station house officer at the Dera Rahim police station, to file charges against four Christians – Noreen Mumtaz, who is pregnant, and her husband Mumtaz Inayat, Aftab Inayat and Kashif Masih, Christian sources said. All four were charged with critically injuring others and attempting to kill or threaten to kill, they said.

Inspector Ditta refused to respond to repeated requests by Compass for comment on allegations that he colluded with the Muslim extremists to falsely accuse the Christian victims of the attack.

The accused Christians pleaded with police that they were innocent, to no avail. Gill said that he was doing his best to resolve the issue peacefully in an attempt to avert the kind of violence that hit the Christian communities of Gojra and Korian in July and August of 2009 and Shanti Nagar in 1997.

The Rev. John Rizwani of Cheechawatni city said the government had allotted a small piece of land to the Christians for the building and that they had permission to build. There are only 25 Christians’ homes amid the approximately 500 Muslim homes in the village.

Ferhan Mazher, chairman of Rays of Development Organization, Azher Kalim, general secretary the Christians Lawyers Foundation and Khalid Gill, head of APMA in Punjab, condemned the attack.

“Attacks on worship places usurp basic human rights and constitute a conspiracy to belittle the name of Pakistan worldwide,” Mazher said.

Report from Compass Direct News

Pakistani Muslims Accused of Rape Allegedly Attack Sisters

Fearing conviction, five suspects said to beat 15- and 21-year-old into dropping charges.

LAHORE, Pakistan, March 18 (CDN) — Five Muslims allegedly ransacked the house of an impoverished Christian in this capital city of Punjab Province last month and angrily beat his daughters in an effort to get the family to withdraw rape charges.

Muhammad Sajjid wielding a pistol, Muhammad Sharif brandishing a dagger and Muhammad Wajjad and two unidentified accomplices carrying bamboo clubs arrived at the Lahore home of Piyara Masih the afternoon of Feb. 26, Christian leaders said. The Muslims allegedly ransacked the house and began thrashing his two daughters, a 15-year-old and her 21-year-old sister, Muniran Bibi, according to attorney Azra Shujaat, head of Global Evangelical Ministries, and Khalid Gill, president of the Christian Liberation Front (CLF).

Muniran said Sharif stabbed her four times with the dagger.

“They ripped apart my clothes, as well as my sister’s,” she said. “In the meantime, Muhammad Sajjid kept firing into the air to terrorize us.”  

The family accuses the men of raping her then-13-year-old sister in 2008. Their frail father said that the gang leader, Sajjid, commanded his accomplices to abduct both Muniran and her sister in the most recent attack, without success. A neighbor who requested anonymity said that a large number of people gathered in front of the house upon hearing the cries of the Christian family, causing the five Muslims to flee.

The alleged attacks on the family were predicated in part on the assumption that, as Christians, they will get little help from a justice system biased against non-Muslims and easily swayed by threats, bribes or other means of persuasion from Muslims, Christian leaders said. When the family approached Nishtar Colony police for help, officers refused to register a case.

Attorney Shujaat said that in refusing to file assault charges, police bowed to the power of wealthy area Muslims. Shujaat, who is providing pro-bono counsel for the family, said he registered a First Information Report (FIR) at the Lahore High Court, accusing the men of ransacking the house and illegal weapons. Only after the high court order for police to file an FIR and strenuous efforts by him, Christian politicians and clergymen did the Nishtar Colony police register one against the Muslim gang.

Police did not register the FIR until March 2, he said, on orders of Additional Sessions Judge Justice Mahr Muhammad Yousaf.

The Christian family said they were still receiving death threats.

Gill, who besides being president of CLF is head of the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, said the alleged rape took place on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2007, when Sajjid, Sharif, Wajjad and an unknown accomplice attacked the family.

“The chastity of [name withheld], who was 13 years old then and youngest among her sisters, was ruined by all four Muslim gang members, and later they abducted her and kept her at an undisclosed locality,” Gill said.

Police later recovered her, and a medical examination proved that she had been repeatedly sexually abused, Gill added.

Shujaat said the four men were being prosecuted for rape and abduction of the girl in District and Sessions Court. Sources told Compass that the alleged rapists were granted bail and secured liberty soon after their apprehension.

Shujaat said evidence at their trial showed they were responsible for the rape, and that a conviction was imminent.

Ferhan Mazher, head of Christian rights group Rays of Development Organization, said the only way for the “perverse Muslim criminals” to do away with the court’s judgment was to convince the Christian family, through threats and violence, to drop the charges.

“Therefore the Muslim men invaded the house of the Christian family to exert intense pressure on them to quash the case,” Mazher said.

Report from Compass Direct News 

Pakistani Muslims Allegedly Poison Christian Employees to Death

Two brothers die, third in critical condition, after complaining they were not paid.

GUJRANWALA, Pakistan, December 15 (CDN) — Muslim employers of three Christian sanitation workers at a banquet/wedding hall here allegedly poisoned the three workers yesterday, killing two of them; at press time the third was struggling for life in intensive care.

The father of the three workers, Yousaf Masih, said the owner of the hall, along with the manager, poisoned his sons because they were Christians who had dared to ask for pay owed to them.

Imran Masih, 29, and Irfan Masih, 25, died at the Ferozewala Pul Banquet & Marriage Hall after being forced to drink something that was heavily poisoned, Yousaf Masih said. The third worker, 23-year-old Aakash Masih, was in critical condition at the Intensive Care Unit of Civil Hospital Gujranwala, in Punjab Province.

“It appears from the position they were in that they were forced to consume some kind of poisoned drink, or a drug, and they were left there to die,” Yousaf Masih said. “The administration of the banquet and wedding hall did not call a hospital or take them to a hospital – instead they called us after the death of two of our loved ones.”

The Peoples Colony police station has registered a murder and deception case against Imtiyas Warriach, owner of the Ferozewala Pul Banquet & Marriage Hall, and hall manager Abid Virk. At press time they remained at large.

The chief of the Peoples Colony police station was not available for comment, but an officer told Compass that the two suspects would be arrested soon.

The family learned of the deaths when another of Yousaf Masih’s sons, 21-year-old Javed Masih, received a telephone call at home from the owner, Warriach, saying that his older brother Imran Masih was lying dead on the floor of the wedding hall.

Because they had not been paid, the three brothers had left the hall to work elsewhere before returning this past weekend. Javed Masih said he spoke by telephone on Friday (Dec. 11) with Warriach, when the owner called asking for his three brothers to return to work.

“The owner and manager of the wedding hall called me in the early morning of Dec. 11 and pleaded for my three brothers to rejoin and start working,” Javed Masih said. “They promised to reimburse their previous outstanding wages, as well as pay them a Christmas bonus and overtime. At this my brothers agreed and went to work the next morning.”

When Yousaf and Javed Masih were summoned to the wedding hall yesterday, they found Imran Masih and Irfan Masih dead. Aakash Masih was alive but lying still on the floor, they said.

Yousaf Masih said his sons had long told him that owner Warriach and manager Virk refused to pay their daily wages, and that the managers and staff members at the hall spoke derogatorily to them for being Christians.

“On demand of their daily wages, the owner and manager had threatened them that they would continue to work without payment or face the dire consequences,” Yousaf Masih said. “After my sons rejoined as sanitation workers, both Warriach and Virk started to make fun of them for leaving the job previously. Both the Muslim men mocked my sons for being Christian and called them by pejorative names such as ‘Choohra.’”

Yousaf Masih, 47, told Compass at the Sargodha offices of human rights group Rays of Development Organization that his sons had worked at the same wedding hall since the day it opened in 2005. Sobbing, he said that the owner and manager had never paid them their full wages during that time, so they had begun looking for other work a few weeks before the Islamic festival of sacrifice, called Eid-ul-Azha.

Muslims refrain from marrying during the Islamic month of Muharram, so in the small window of time between the start of that month and the end of the Eid-ul-Azha festival, wedding halls thrive and require all available help, he said.

Javed Masih said the bodies of Imran Masih and Irfan Masih were moved to the morgue at Civil Hospital Gujranwala for autopsy.

Report from Compass Direct News