Christian Woman Kidnapped in Pakistan Escapes

Impoverished father had received ultimatum from employer who loaned him money.

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan, May 31 (CDN) — A Christian woman who was kidnapped, forced to marry a Muslim farmer and told to convert to Islam amid a dispute over a loan said today she has returned home after weeks of  “captivity and torture.”

Sania James, 33, was kidnapped April 5 by armed men who stormed her parent’s house in the small town of Rawat, just outside Rawalpindi, neighbors confirmed to Compass. The gunmen allegedly told her father that he would see his daughter again only if he paid off a loan of 250,000 rupees (US$2,930) plus 30 percent interest – a rate much higher than previously agreed upon.

James said the armed men took her to farmer Mohammad Shahbaz Ali and forced her to marry him.

“I have been tortured, forced to convert and forcefully married,” said James, who escaped earlier this month.

She refused to convert to Islam and was continuously tortured, James said without elaborating.

“One night I managed to escape and returned home,” she said. “I have contacted Christian rights groups to help me.”

Shahbaz Ali reacted angrily when asked about the alleged incidents.

“I refuse to say anything,” he told Compass.

Neighbors who said they watched the kidnapping said they were unable to intervene.

“We have been warned by Shahbaz Ali that if any one tries to help these Christians, they will have to face dire consequences,” said one of the neighbors, Mohammad Hamza. “Everyone is scared.”

The kidnapping came five years after the woman’s father, James Ayub, allegedly took the loan from Shahbaz Ali, his long-time employer, to pay for his oldest daughter’s wedding.

Ayub, who worked at Shahbaz Ali’s farm for two decades, was initially told that the interest rate on the loan would be 15 percent, but the rate was later doubled, family members said. Shahbaz Ali allegedly told Ayub in February that his family would be attacked unless he paid off the loan within two months.

In a bid to raise the money, Sania James said she had begun to work on the farm along with her elderly, impoverished father. James said that her father was “thrown out of the farm,” and that she was subsequently kidnapped.

Local Pastor Faraz Samson, who tried to mediate in the conflict, said he went to Shahbaz Ali to end “the injustice, but he didn’t listen.”

Police officials reportedly said they were unable to halt the alleged kidnapping, saying Shahbaz Ali was a very influential man.

“I am shocked that a daughter of a poor man has been kidnapped, and the law can’t do anything,” Pastor Samson said.

The kidnapping was not an isolated incident, according to rights activists. They have expressed concerns that Christian women and girls have been kidnapped across Pakistan, a predominantly Muslim nation, often amid disputes over land and money.

Advocacy organizations Life for All and Peace Pakistan have condemned the incident.

Report from Compass Direct News

Allegedly Raped Girl, Family in Pakistan Forced to Flee Town

Death threats, ultimatum from powerful Muslims compel father of 12-year-old to move.

GUJRANWALA, Pakistan, May 25 (CDN) — A Christian who accused a Muslim of raping his 12-year-old daughter has fled his town in Punjab Province with his family following death threats and police pressure to drop the case.

Citing “continuous threats” to take his life, Zafar Masih left Gujranwala’s predominantly Muslim town of Nai Abadi Tatlay Aali within 10 days of accusing Ali Ahmed, a 28-year-old businessman, of beating and raping his daughter on May 12.

His daughter, whose name was withheld, told Compass that her employer, Ahmed, beat and raped her when she went to his home, where she worked as a house servant. When she arrived she was surprised to find him at home in his room, she said.

“He grabbed my hair and asked me to sleep with him,” she said, amid tears. “I refused to let him have sexual relations with me, which enraged him.” 

Her body marred with bruises, she said he tore her clothes and she screamed, but no one else was in the home to hear her.

“Ali Ahmed overpowered me, and all my efforts were futile even though I strained with all my energy to stop him,” she said. “After getting stigmatized, I was threatened with dire consequences and the slaying of my whole family if I told about the rape.”

The oldest of four children, she fled the house and immediately sent her younger brother to call her father, who was working in a nearby field, she said.

Masih, her father, said he immediately went to Tatlay Aali police station and submitted an application to file a First Information Report against Ahmed. Station House Officer Inspector Iqbal Ojjhra refused, he said, and began to pressure him to withdraw the application.

A powerful local politician along with the area’s largest land owner, Imtiyaz Kharral, have since threatened to maim or kill him, Masih said.

“I declined to withdraw my application, though I was being immensely pressured by both the leading Muslim men,” Masih said. “And Inspector Ojjhra had a new alibi every day for not registering the case.”

Inspector Ojjhra denied all allegations against him. He told Compass that he declined to register a rape case because he did not want to harm the Christian girl’s dignity, so instead he had recommended trying to resolve the conflict in a public gathering or “punchayat.”

Arif Masih, a Nai Abadi Tatlay Aali representative for local Christians, told Compass that the next evening, May 13, Kharral called a meeting at his farmhouse with Inspector Ojjhra, local Muslims and a contingent of police officers. Also summoned were Zafar Masih and his children, Arif Masih and the other Christian families of the town.

“At Imtiyaz Kharral’s farmhouse gathering, none of the Christians were allowed to speak or express their opinion,” said Arif Masih, who said the wealthy land owner considered himself the head of the town. “Even I being representative of the Christians was not allowed to speak for [Zafar Masih’s daughter] or put forward the demands of the Christians.”

Only Kharral spoke, saying that there were only two options – Zafar Masih could withdraw his rape charge, or he and the other Christian families in Nai Abadi Tatlay Aali could relocate elsewhere.

“He ignored the fact that the girl would have to live her whole life with this irrecoverable loss and stigma,” Arif Masih said. “I was totally helpless in this showdown, because Imtiyaz Kharral and Ali Ahmed have the favor of the local police head, Iqbal Ojjhra.”

Khalid Gill, chairman of the Christian Lawyers Foundation (CLF), condemned the dismissive police attitude toward marginalized Christians. He suggested that the chief justice of the Lahore High Court take suo moto action against the suspect, his associates and police officers as responsible for mental anguish of the area Christians.

Tahir Naveed Chaudhary, a Christian member of Punjab’s legislative assembly, also denounced the alleged rape and pledged to extend legal and financial support to the family of Zafar Masih. 

Most of the area Christians are construction laborers, sanitation workers and domestic servants working for daily wages. Zafar Masih said he could not afford to educate his children because he was living close to poverty level.

“My eldest daughter worked as a maidservant for a monthly salary of 500 rupees [less than US$6] to lend a hand,” he said. “We Christians in Pakistan have no life even dogs live better life than us.”

Report from Compass Direct News 

Buddhist Extremists in Bangladesh Beat, Take Christians Captive

Pastor, two others held in pagoda in attempt to force them back to Buddhism.

DHAKA, Bangladesh, April 23 (CDN) — Buddhist members of an armed rebel group and their sympathizers are holding three tribal Christians captive in a pagoda in southeastern Bangladesh after severely beating them in an attempt to force them to return to Buddhism, Christian sources said.

Held captive since April 16 are Pastor Shushil Jibon Talukder, 55; Bimol Kanti Chakma, 50; and Laksmi Bilas Chakma, 40, of Maddha Lemuchari Baptist Church in Lemuchari village, in Mohalchari sub-district of the mountainous Khagrachari district, some 300 kilometers (186 miles) southeast of Dhaka. They are to be kept in the pagoda for 15 to 20 days as punishment for having left the Buddhist religion, the sources said.

Local Buddhists are considered powerful as they have ties with the United Peoples Democratic Front (UPDF), an armed group in the hill districts.

After taking the Christians captive on April 16, the sources said, the next day the armed Buddhist extremists forced other Christians of Maddha Lemuchari Baptist Church to demolish their church building by their own hands. The extremists first seized all blankets, Bibles and song books from the church building.

The sources said two UPDF members went to Pastor Talukder’s house at 7 a.m. on April 16, telling him to go to a Buddhist community leader’s house in a nearby village. The Buddhist leader also ordered all members of the Baptist church to come to his house, and about 15 Christians did so.

After a brief dispute, the Buddhists chose the pastor and the two other Christians and began beating them, seriously injuring the pastor. They then took them to a nearby pagoda for Buddhist baptism, shaving their heads and dressing them in saffron robes as part of a conversion ritual.

The sources said Pastor Talukder was bludgeoned nearly to death.

“The pastor was beaten so seriously that he could not walk to the nearby pagoda,” said one source. “Buddhist people took him on a wooden stretcher, which is used for carrying a dead body for burial or cremation.” 

Pastor Talukder was treated in the pagoda with intravenous, hypodermic injections that saved his life, the source said.

The Buddhist extremists were said to be forcing other Christians to undergo Buddhist baptism in the pagoda and to embrace Buddhism.

A source in Khagrachari district told Compass that local UPDF Buddhists had been mounting pressure on the Christians since their church began in the area in early 2007.

“They gave vent to their anger on Christians in a violent outburst by beating the pastor and two others after failing several attempts in the past to stop their evangelical activities,” the source said. “They took them into a pagoda to convert them forcibly to Buddhism.”

In June the Buddhists had threatened to harm Pastor Talukder if he did not give up his Christian faith. The pastor escaped and hid in different churches for two months. Later he came back in the area and began his pastoral and evangelical activities anew.

“They also made threats and gave ultimatums to three or four other churches in the locality to try to force them to come back to Buddhism,” the source said.

‘Social Deviation’

Regional Sub-district Chairman Sona Ratan Chakma told Compass that the “three renegade Buddhists” are being kept in the pagoda for religious indoctrination.

“They became Christian, and they were breaking the rules and customs of the Buddhist society, so elders of the society were angry with them,” Chakma said. “That is why they were sent to a pagoda for 15 to 20 days for their spiritual enlightenment, so that they can come back to their previous place [Buddhism].”

Chakma said the Christians have not been tortured but given punishment proportionate to the gravity of their “social deviation.”

“They were punished so that they can come to their senses,” he said.

Under Siege

The Rev. Leor P. Sarkar, general secretary of Bangladesh Baptist Church Fellowship, told Compass that the UPDF’s ultimatum was of grave concern.

“This armed group issued an ultimatum that by April 30 all Christians should come back to Buddhism, otherwise all of them will face the same consequences,” said Sarkar.

Christians are virtually in a state of siege by the UPDF, he said. None of them go to church buildings on the traditional worship days of Friday or Sunday, instead worshipping in their own houses.

Sarkar added that the tribal Christians do not have any political conflict with the UPDF.

“They simply persecute them for their faith in Christ,” he said. “Their only demand to us is to go back to Buddhism.”

The UPDF’s order to give up their faith is a matter of life and death, Sarkar said.

“A ripple of unknown fear gripped the entire Christian community there,” he said. “Everybody took fright from that menacing cruelty. The everyday life of Christians is hampered, beset with threats, hatred and ostracism. So it is a social catastrophe.”

The church leader urgently appealed to local government officials to come to the aid of the kidnapped Christians.

The UPDF is one of two main tribal organizations in the hill districts, the other being the United People’s Party of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (Parbatya Chattagram Jana Sanghati Samiti, or PCJSS). The PCJSS, formed in 1973, had fought for autonomy in the region for 25 years, leaving nearly 8,500 troops, rebels and civilians killed. After signing a peace accord in 1997 with the Bangladesh government, the PCJSS laid down arms.

But the UPDF, a political party founded in 1998 based in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, has strong and serious reservations against the Chittagong Hill Tracts Accord signed 1997. Claiming that the agreement failed to address fundamental demands of the indigenous Jumma people, the UPDF has pledged to fight for their full autonomy.

Last year the PCJSS demanded that the government ban the UPDF for their terrorist activities in the hill districts.

The Chittagong Hill Tracts region comprises three districts: Bandarban, Khagrachuri and Rangamati. The region is surrounded by the Indian states of Tripura on the north and Mizoram on the east, Myanmar on the south and east.

Report from Compass Direct News 

Pakistani Muslims Gun Down Christian Friend

They order him to convert to Islam or die, after accusing him of murder.

MUREEDKAY, Pakistan, December 21 (CDN) — A group of Muslims shot their Christian friend dead this month on the outskirts of this town after saying they would spare his life only if he recanted his faith, according to the young man’s father.

The friends of Patras Masih, who died from gunshot wounds on Dec. 3 in Karol village, Punjab Province, issued the ultimatum to him after accusing him of the murder of their friend Anees Mahammad. An autopsy reported showed Mahammad died from toxic alcohol earlier that day.

Patras Masih’s father, Gulzar Masih, said his son was at home on that day, had no contact with Mahammad, and that his friends accused him of the murder only because he refused to recant Christianity and embrace Islam.

On Dec. 1, Mahammad and three other Muslim friends of Patras Masih – Sohail Muhammad, Imran Muhammad and Amir Muhammad – had arrived with unknown Muslim men and asked Masih to help them find liquor, Gulzar Masih told Compass. Pakistani law forbids Muslims from buying or consuming alcohol. Locally brewed liquor in rural areas of Pakistan can be fatally toxic; this month 14 people died from locally brewed, toxic liquor in Pakistan’s Punjab Province, news website Express India reported today.

“On that night,” Gulzar Masih said, “I also heard them saying in a commanding way in the drawing room of our house, ‘You [Patras Masih] ought to accept Islam and recant your faith, otherwise you and your family will be responsible for the dire consequences.’”   

Patras Masih held fast to his faith, his father said; leaving with his Muslim friends, he bought them a couple of bottles of liquor and returned home.

His voice full of grief, Gulzar Masih said that on Dec. 3, his son’s three Muslim friends arrived at their doorway yelling that he had killed Mahammad, and that they would spare his life only if he converted to Islam. They accused Patras Masih of serving Mahammad a toxic drink in their home the previous day.

When Patras Masih refused to recite the Islamic conversion creed, his father said, Sohail Muhammad, Imran Muhammad and Amir Muhammad sprayed bullets at his chest, killing him instantly.

“My son bravely refused to recant Christianity and clung to Christ,” Gulzar Masih said, dejected but with a small smile on his face. “He bravely embraced martyrdom.”

He said these same three friends on several occasions had pressured Patras Masih to convert to Islam, “but my son never accepted their invitation and always turned down their request to recant Christianity in a healthy and polite manner.”

When his father asked him about his friends’ Dec. 1 threats, Patras Masih told him that they often insisted that he become a Muslim. Though the young men had been friends since childhood, Gulzar Masih told his son to stop seeing them, he said. 

Sternly denying that his son was capable of killing a human being., he pointed out that Patras Masih’s friends accused him of serving Mahammad a toxic drink at Masih’s home on Dec. 2, but that Mahammad died on Dec. 3.

“Surely it is a conspiracy against him because he refused to meet their unreasonable demands,” the frail, bereaved father said. “They were ready to spare him only if he converted to Islam by reciting the holy Kalima [Islamic affirmation of faith], an emblem that one has become a Muslim.” 

He said that all four Muslim men had been friends of Patras Masih since childhood.

Gulzar Masih said that Ferozewala police have registered a murder case against the three suspects, but that they are all still at large and his family is vulnerable to further attacks.

Report from Compass Direct News