ICC Note:

Recently, Pakistani police arrested two Muslim individuals in connection with the killing of a Christian man in Faisalabad. Tanveer Masih, a Christian man, was murdered in May while attempting to rescue his 14-year-old daughter who had been kidnapped and forced to convert to Islam. Hundreds of Christian women and women from other minority groups in Pakistan are kidnapped, raped and forced to convert to Islam each year. With little help from police, the families of these women are forced to try to rescue their loved ones on their own. Is this a turning point for Pakistan in regards to protecting Christians? 

9/6/2016 Pakistan (Christian Post) – The family of a Pakistani man who was killed while trying to rescue his Christian daughter from a forced Islamic marriage has been given hope for justice after the men who killed him were charged over the murder by state authorities.

The British Pakistani Christian Association reported the news on Sunday, noting that both Muhammed and Zahid Iqbal have been arrested in connection with Tanveer Masih’s murder, though a police search is still underway for fugitive Tahir Iqbal.

Masih was shot dead on May 31 by two assailants on a motorcycle, reportedly after he was invited by one of the cousins of the men who took his daughter to discuss her return home. Fourteen-year-old Mehwish was kidnapped by Zahid Iqbal in Shadab Colony in Faisalabad after she went there to work as a domestic servant, but was raped and forced into an Islamic marriage.

BPCA, which advocates for persecuted Christians in Pakistan, started a petition and pressed the case to police who eventually implicated Zahid Iqbal and his brother, Tahir Iqbal, along with their father, Muhammed Iqbal, in connection with the murder.

Zahid has since confessed to the murder, leading BPCA to express confidence that the murderers will face full prosecution within the next few months at Faisalabad High Court.

“International pressure is starting to bring change and the current government is fashioning processes that in decades to come may result in a fairer Pakistan. The main challenge they will face is how to remove societal hatred for minorities,” said Wilson Chowdhry, chairman of the BPCA.

“The longer they take to amend existing bias in the national curriculum of Pakistan, the more the hatred toward minorities that is inculcated from school age is allowed to fester and will continue to espouse polarization. This simply creates a sense of worthlessness of minority communities.”

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