Pakistan’s Supreme Court has ordered the arrest of two Muslim clerics for inciting a violent mob of hundreds of Muslims to brutally beat, torture, burn and murder a married Christian couple in the Punjab Province in early November.

The court also ordered disciplinary action to be levied against five police officials, who were present during the time of the beatings but took no action to protect the two individuals. Additionally, the court ordered a complete investigation into the incident and also ordered compensation payments to be made to the family of the victimized couple.

After being accused of burning pages from the Koran, Shamah Masih, who was a 24-year-old mother of four and four months pregnant at the time, and her husband, Shahzad Masih, were surrounded by an enraged mob, who gathered around the brick kiln in the village of Kot Rodha Kishan where the couple was located.

According to a 17-page report conducted for the three-member bench by Punjab police, the mob, which consisted of about 500-600 people, began to torture the couple in front of members of their family and in the presence of police officials.

The report further indicates that police officers in the area attempted to stop the violence, but the officers’ actions were halted by the large crowd. After having had their legs broken and having been tortured, over 15 people from the mob picked the couple up and thrust them into the kiln, while they were still alive.

The police have charged 138 people for the crime and already have 59 people in custody, while 79 are still at large. Although the police report states that only as many as 600 people were included in the mob, witness testimony idicates that as many as 1,500 people could have been involved with the mob.

Although police officers in the area initially tried to stop the mob, the court’s Chief Justice Nasirul Mulk said that the police department failed to use the more extreme measures it has at its disposal to protect the Christian couple. Mulk also questioned why the police in the area failed to react when their demands for the mob to halt the violence were ignored.

“Why they did not make an attempt to secure the Christian couple, as they could disperse the mob through aerial firing,” Mulk questioned.

The Express Tribune reports that an advocate for the police department told the court that the police officers in the area were also tortured by the mob when they tried to respond, which prevented the officers from taking further action. However, the chief justice asked if their was medical proof to show that the officers were in fact tortured, and the police advocate replied that “there is no such report in this regard.”

The attorney representing the owner of the brick kiln told the court that kiln owner had warned police prior to the incident that “some clerics” were “inciting people”, but no security measures were taken.

Initially calling for the investigation into the murders were the couples’ surviving family members, who claim that they were threatened and even bribed to drop their plea for an investigation.

“All we want is fair investigation of this case,” the brother of Shahzad, Shahbaz Masih, said according to The Express Tribune.

Unhappy with the 17-page report the Punjab police filed on the incident, the court labeled the report as unsatisfactory and adjourned the case until Jan. 15, as they await more details to come from a more comprehensive investigation.

Source and Original Content by CP

The assault on Christian girls in Pakistan continues, and the number of cases has risen to an alarming rate.

One of the most recent incidents targeting the country’s Christian minority is the alleged rape of two teenage girls at gunpoint in Pakistan’s Punjab province.

Release International reports that the girls, aged 14 and 16, were attacked on their way to the toilet in a village in Jaranwala district on November 28.

According to the Deccan Herald, the victims’ father filed a complaint with the local police when his daughters did not return.

The girls were found unconscious on a road several kilometers from the village. They were rushed to the district headquarters hospital and declared out of danger.

Station house officer Lundianwala Muhammad Nasir said that a First Information Report (FIR) has been filed against the suspects and that Muhammad Shabaz, one of the four suspects, has been arrested.

The girls’ family said however that they have been threatened not to press charges and that the police have impeded efforts to gather medical evidence.

There have been similar stories in the press in recent months. Shoebat.com published a story of one attack on a 16-year-old Christian girl, Saba Bibi, in which she was tied up and raped in turn by six Muslim men.

Agenzia Fides reported the rape of a 12-year-old Christian girl named Muqadas in August. Muqadas, who served as a maid for a Muslim family, was on her way home from work when she was “kidnapped by two Muslim men and three women. They took her inside a school (which was closed) and the two men, identified as Ashraf Alias Achi and Ghaffor Alias Paida, raped her repeatedly in turn. The girl was later abandoned.”

The victim’s family also received threats of violence when they filed a complaint.

According to the Assyrian International News Agency, the family’s lawyer Sardar Mushtaq Gill said, “In Pakistan, rape is used as an instrument of arbitrary power over Christian girls, who come from poor and marginalised families. It is a form of violence that wants to reiterate the submission to Muslims.”

Gill added, “The rest of society is not outraged because the victims mostly belong to religious minorities, who are the most vulnerable.”

Sadly, Christian girls face more than rape in Pakistan. According to South Asia Partnership Pakistan provincial coordinator Shahnaz Sheedi, the “statistics on constantly increasing forced marriages and conversions are quite worrying.”

Sheedi said that in 2014 alone, 260 cases were reported from Punjab, 69 in Sindh, 39 in K-P, and six in Balochistan.

Release partners say Christians who are forcibly converted to Islam are at “high risk” of extremist attack if they are seen not to adhere to Islamic codes.

Source and Original Content by CT