Information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies since 1927
Kasur (Agenzia Fides) - Javed Masih, Shahbaz Masih's father, a young Christian killed by Muslims in Kasur (in Punjab), has just managed to register a formal complaint (First Information Report) and is now demanding justice; Sonia Bibi, a young 20 year-old Christian Kasur, is traumatized after being gang raped by Muslim youths; Rebecca Bibi, a 12 year-old Christian girl, who worked as a maid, lost an eye due to the beatings on behalf of her Muslim employer: these are the dramatic cases reported to Fides by the Christian communities in Punjab that complain about "violence and abuse for religious reasons, the police’s lack of collaboration, the injustice in the courts".
As reported to Fides the Protestant Pastor Mushtaq Gill, in Kasur, who personally knows Shabhaz Masih's family, the killing of the young man, which occurred about a month ago, left a family on the street. The boy was killed in retaliation by some Muslims who wanted to punish his father, Javed Masih, an artisan manufacturer of bricks, for failing to honor a loan. Today the family is in poverty, since it has six other very young children. The police at first refused to register the case, then, finally, with the intervention of the Ngo LEAD (Legal Evangelical Association Development) opened an investigation of the case. "But the hopes for justice are very few" notes Pastor Gill.
In the case of Sonia Bibi, a 20-year-old stopped and raped a few days ago by a group of Muslims as she was going to work, always in Kasur, seems that the police are "a little more collaborative," and the complaint has been registered. The case is emblematic of the vulnerability of Christian girls. The accused belong to powerful Muslim families, and in such cases, the perpetrators often go unpunished because of a deep complicity in the judicial system and institutions.
The poorest Christian families, for economic necessity, often send their minor children to work as domestic servants in Muslim families. Here children are sexually abused and beaten, as the case of the 12-year-old Rebecca Bibi (fantasy name), from Lahore, who came home with bruises and swollen wounds. The family took her to the hospital (the child lost an eye) and made a complaint. Pastor Gill told Fides: "In Punjab, the Christian situation is critical: they are victims of abuse of power and have no justice, given the weakness of the legal system, which is a big problem". (PA) (Agenzia Fides 02/12/2011)
