LAHORE, Pakistan — Muslims in Pakistan, including a former police officer, on Monday tortured a Christian laborer to death over a theft accusation, the victim’s brother said.
Riyasat Masih of Mohalla Jamalpur in Jamkay Cheema village, Sialkot District, Punjab Province, said that his brother Kashif Masih, a 35-year-old Catholic, worked on the agricultural property of former police inspector Malik Irfan for the last three years.
At about 2:30 a.m. on Monday, two relatives of Irfan — Areeb Babar and Ijaz Ikramullah — forced their way into the home where the Masih brothers lived, Riyasat Masih said.
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“They alleged that my brother Kashif had stolen a cell phone from their outhouse,” Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “They conducted a thorough search of our house and left after finding nothing there. They did not tell us at that time that Kashif was in their custody since the evening of May 11, Sunday.”
At 5 a.m. the next day, neighbors informed Masih that someone had thrown Kashif Masih onto an area street, and that he had been brutally tortured, he said.
“We were already very worried because we were unable to contact him,” Masih said. “As soon as we got the information, we rushed to the spot and found him lying there, badly bruised with blood gushing out from several parts of his body. He was still breathing when we brought him home.”
Before succumbing to his injuries, Kashif Masih told his brother and others that Malik Irfan had summoned him to his outhouse on the evening of May 11 and accused him of stealing a mobile phone, Masih said.
“According to Kashif, Irfan then ordered his seven accomplices, including Areeb and Ijaz, to beat him till he confessed,” he said. “Kashif said that Areeb, Ijaz and the others then started torturing him with wooden clubs and iron bars, hitting him indiscriminately all over his body.”
Masih said that when they took his brother’s body to the hospital for autopsy, they found that the assailants had also hammered several steel nails into his legs.
“I cannot express the pain when I saw my younger brother’s body,” Masih said. “The bruise marks showed the brutality he had suffered at the hands of his influential employer and his goons.”
Police were initially reluctant to register a murder case against a former police officer, but after a large number of Christians gathered there, officers eventually registered a First Information Report (FIR) and arrested Irfan, Masih said.
Babar and Ikramullah obtained pre-arrest bail on Tuesday while police have yet to find other suspects, he said.
“We are seven brothers and two sisters, and Kashif was the fifth among us,” he said. “Our father passed away some years ago, and all of us work as laborers to support our families. I cannot tell you the condition of our elderly mother who is devastated by Kashif’s gruesome murder.”
Masih, a vegetable vendor, said that he found it hard to believe that the assailants had barbarically tortured his brother over a mere cell phone.
“If they had suspected Kashif of stealing the phone, they could have simply handed him to the police or brought the matter to our notice,” he said. “The manner in which they mercilessly beat him black and blue and hammered nails in his body makes me suspect that the reason was something else.”
His brother had not revealed any concerns regarding his employer, he added.
Local Christians offered the family their full support to obtain justice for the murdered brother, Masih said.
“I’m very grateful to my community for standing with us in this difficult time,” he said. “They have not only raised funds to support us but are also actively engaged in finding good legal representation which can help us in getting justice for Kashif.”
Christians in Pakistan often suffer from violence and persecution perpetrated by Muslims. They also face barriers in accessing justice, further compounding their plight in this Muslim-majority nation.
On Feb. 27, Muslim landowners abducted a Christian laborer, shaved his head and facial hair, blackened his face and paraded him on the back of a donkey for allegedly stealing wood from their property. At least seven Muslims attacked Wasif George, 34, of village Chak 110-GB Chak Jhumra in Faisalabad District, Punjab Province, after he had gone to gather wood, said his brother, Patras George.
“My brother was gathering wood along the banks of a canal when the assailants came there and accused him of theft,” George told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News, adding that the assailants dragged his brother to a poultry farm where they not only tortured [by beating] him but also got his head and facial hair shaved by a barber.
The assailants blackened his face, forced him to sit on a donkey and paraded him around in the village, he said.
On June 6, 2024, a Muslim factory owner tortured to death 18-year-old Catholic worker, Waqas Salamat, for leaving the job against his wishes. According to the victim’s mother, five men, including the employer and his son, forcibly took her son to the factory and tortured him for hours with electric shocks, resulting in his death.
Pakistan ranked eighth on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of the most difficult places to be a Christian.
This article was originally published at Christian Daily International–Morning Star News
Christian Daily International provides biblical, factual and personal news, stories and perspectives from every region, focusing on religious freedom, holistic mission and other issues relevant for the global Church today.
Morning Star News is the only independent news service focusing exclusively on the persecution of Christians. The nonprofit’s mission is to provide complete, reliable, even-handed news in order to empower those in the free world to help persecuted Christians, and to encourage persecuted Christians by informing them that they are not alone in their suffering.
