A Pakistani Christian man has been tortured to death for washing himself at a well belonging to a Muslim landowner, according to an organisation dedicated to highlighting and opposing persecution of Christians in Pakistan.
Saleem Masih, 22, was a labourer from Baguyana village, Kasur District, near Lahore. On 25 February, after unloading a farm vehicle, Masih washed himself in a nearby well. When the owner of the well, Sher Dogar, discovered he was a Christian, he began to beat Masih with a stick, shouting anti-Christian slurs.
Masih was dragged to a cattle farm and beaten with sticks and iron rods; with his hands tied and feet chained, his captors rolled a thick iron rod over his whole body, causing multiple fractures in his ribs and left arm. After being tortured in this manner for hours, Masih fell unconscious from the pain.
The following morning, the local police gave Masih’s location to his family, who found the unconscious Masih, severely injured, lying where he had been tortured. The police, who had been called to the farm by Dogar, encouraged the family not to take the issue further. Dogar asserted that Masih had committed a crime by dirtying his well water and so he had been justly punished. Masih died from his wounds at Lahore’s General Hospital on 28 February.
Kasur district is known for violent persecution of Christians by Muslims. In 2014 Sajjad Mesih and his wife Shama, a Christian couple in their 30s, were burned alive in a brick kiln by a Muslim mob for allegedly desecrating pages of the Qu’ran. Shama was expecting her fifth child.
There are around four million Christians in Pakistan, 2% of the total population of 200 million. They face significant legal and social obstacles in a country that is officially an ‘Islamic Republic’: Christian television channels were banned in 2016, Christians cannot become President, Prime Minister, or a senior judge, and strict blasphemy legislation can make it difficult for non-muslims to explain their religious views without breaking the law. In recent years, there has been a surge in violent attacks on Christians, both in organised bombings or shootings of churches, and in attacks upon of individual believers.
Nasir Saeed, the director of CLAAS-UK, the organisation that reported the killing, argues that Mr. Masih’s death illustrates the increasing difficulties faced by Pakistani Christians. Mr Saeed warned it would not be easy to bring the killers to court, “because the Pakistani police is often biased when it comes to [disputes between] Muslims and non-Muslims.”
Mr Saeed compared Masih’s beating to the case of Asia Bibi - who lived on death row for eight years after an argument over a cup of water led to blasphemy charges, and to the death of Javed Anjum, who died of his injuries after being tortured for drinking a Madrassah’s water. There are even more cases, he went on to say, that do not get reported: “Pakistani Muslim society has become more intolerant than ever and living as a Christian is becoming harder than ever.”
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