LAHORE, Pakistan — A Muslim man in Pakistan who twice abducted a Christian mother also raped her, fraudulently converted her to Islam and fabricated an Islamic marriage before she managed to escape, sources said.
The suspect, Muhammad Asif Sadiq, is still threatening her husband, demanding that he return his “wife” and withdraw all charges against him, said Asif Maih, the husband of the 37-year-old mother of three children.
Masih of Pattoki Tehsil in Kasur District, Punjab Province, said that when his wife was first abducted on Jan. 11, he assumed she had gone with Sadiq willingly.
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“However, when Sadiq claimed that she had changed her faith and married him, I immediately knew that it was a lie because she was a devout Christian and could not renounce Christ even if her life was at stake,” Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “She was clearly deceived by Sadiq, who used the false conversion certificate and marriage to deter efforts to recover her.”
His wife, whose name is withheld as a rape victim, said Sadiq works as a security guard at the University of Veterinary and Animal Sciences (UVAS), where she works as a cleaner. She said Sadiq had convinced her to go with him to enroll in a government plan for financial help.
“I had no clue about his real intentions and trusted his offer for assistance,” the member of the Full Gospel Assemblies Church told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
She said Sadiq took her to an unknown location to fill out forms and fraudulently got her thumb impression on documents.
“I’m not literate, so I had no idea that he had obtained my thumbprints to prepare false religious conversion and marriage certificates,” she said. “He then forcibly took me to his house, where his wife and two children were also present. He locked me in a room where I was kept hostage for eight days.”
Her husband and relatives got a local council of elders known as a Panchayat to force Sadiq to release her to her family, she said.
“He also assured the council that he would nullify the fake marriage on the condition that my family doesn’t take the matter to the police,” she said.
With her husband suffering cancer and no longer able to work as a rickshaw driver, she resumed her job at UVAS in order to feed their family. She earns 28,000 rupees ($101 USD) per month, with which she barely manages to feed the family and care for her sick husband.
“I tried my best to avoid Sadiq at the university and even changed my shifts and place of duty to prevent any contact with him,” she said.
On Feb. 14, as she was leaving work, Sadiq and two unidentified accomplices arrived in a car and abducted her at gunpoint, she said, adding that they took her to the Shahkot area of Nankana Sahib District, some 100 kilometers (62 miles) from Pattoki.
“Sadiq held me hostage in a relative’s house and repeatedly tortured and raped me at gunpoint for three days,” she said.
During the first abduction, she added, Sadiq had not sexually assaulted her.
On Feb. 17 she found a chance to escape and returned home to her family.
“I had no money with me and begged passersby to give me some so that I could board a bus to Pattoki,” she said. “I was traumatized by the assaults, but the hope of seeing my husband and children again gave me the strength to reach my family.”
Masih filed a police complaint against Sadiq the same evening she returned. Police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against Sadiq on Feb. 19, but a delay in action enabled him to obtain pre-arrest bail.
“We do not have the money to bribe the police, because of which they did not make any sincere effort to arrest the accused,” Masih lamented.
Christian attorney Sumera Shafique helped get his wife’s statement recorded in court and facilitated a medical examination on March 4.
“It is due to her support that the case has picked up pace, otherwise the police were not cooperating with us,” Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News of the attorney’s efforts.
Shafique expressed hope that the suspect’s interim bail would be rejected and he would be arrested following results of the medical report, which confirmed that Masih’s wife had been sexually assaulted.
“The police have registered a FIR under Section 496-A which relates to enticing or detaining with criminal intent a woman to have illicit sex and is punishable by up to seven years imprisonment,” Shafique said. “However, after her statement in court detailing how she was abducted, forcibly converted and then subjected to rape, we will now seek the addition of all relevant sections, including rape, in the FIR against Sadiq.”
Section 376 of the Pakistan Penal Code prescribes a uniform punishment of rape: death or imprisonment for a minimum term of 10 years and maximum term of 25 years, with a fine.
Pakistan is ranked No. 8 on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of countries where it is most difficult to live as a Christian.
This article was originally published at Christian Daily International–Morning Star News
