By Jeremy Reynalds, Senior Correspondent, ASSIST News Service (jeremyreynalds@gmail.com)
LONDON, UK (ANS -- October 13, 2015) --
A Christian family accused of blasphemy narrowly escaped an
extra-judicial killing after a Muslim lynch mob tried to murder them.
According to a news release
from the British Pakistani Christian Association (BPCA), Aftab Gill, 40,
lived in Railway Colony in Wazirabad, Distt Gujranwala, and worked as a
master tailor. He has five children, three sons and two daughters.
Their house is near a local
mosque and, like many other local people, they regularly drew clean
water from the water tap outside the mosque-their only option. The water
was paid for in accordance with the mosque policy.
On Aug. 14 2015, Muslim Zain
Shah, 18, from the neighboring village told Aftab Gill's sons, Akash,
12, and Adnan, 5, to convert to Islam, but they refused.
On
the same day, while Aftab was taking water from the water tap at the
local mosque, BPCA reported the same man shouted at Aftab and said, “You
Christians are not allowed to take water from the mosque. If you want
to drink our water you must embrace Islam and pray regularly inside the
mosque. Otherwise evil infidels defile our water taps.”
A few days later Zain Shah came to the mosque with other Muslim men, and again demanded the sons convert to Islam.
They slapped Gill's eldest
son Akash, who refused to convert, and at that point Aftab replied to
the men, saying “You failed to convert Baba Guru Nanak (founder of the
Sikh faith), so why pursue converting my children who follow the true
and living God?”
BPCA said Zain and his
friends then started to beat the father and his sons, and while local
police saw the altercation and intervened, they refused to file a
complaint against the Muslim aggressors.
Two hours later Zain and his
brother visited their home accompanied by a mob of about 200 men, ready
to lynch the family. An area resident called the police who dispersed
the crowd before any violence occurred.
Later that day a few elders
from the Christian community asked police officials to accompany them
with Aftab, so they could meet with the local cleric to resolve the
issue.
Despite the general perception that local Muslim clerics deliver hate speeches in the mosque, this one was different.
BPCA said he assured the
terrified Christian family that he would not allow the situation to
escalate. However, he suggested that Aftab needed to leave the village
for the sake of his own and his family's future, believing this would
reduce tension in the community.
Since then Aftab and his
family have moved away from the area, leaving Aftab's distraught mother
Bashiran Bibi living alone in the former family home.
BPCA reported she said, “Life
for Christians in Pakistan is now worse than ever. We are attacked
daily and treated worse than rats. Muslims do not want us as their
neighbors because they believe we are evil and have satanic diseases. My
son and his family came close to death and we were all terrified when
the mob came to our house.”
She continued, “I prayed to
God for His protection and by His grace we have survived, but now my
children are far away from me and I am very lonely. My tears are
constant.”
BPCA said there was no First
Investigation Report (FIR) registered at the local police station as the
issue was resolved peacefully outside the courts.
According
to BPCA, “There are a few other Christian families living in the same
area, and we are concerned for their safety. The tensions in the
community have somewhat dissipated but could erupt again at any time as
no separate safe drinking water facility exists for the Christians,
requiring them to also use the Mosque tap.”
The BPCA would like to
install a clean water pump in the area for this hard-pressed community
and are hoping to raise £750 for that purpose. They hope to install it
in the local church, and see it become a beacon of hope for a suffering
minority.
Shamim Masih said that living
near any mosque for a Christian family in a Muslim dominated country
like Pakistan can be very dangerous. He recalled living in Rawalpindi
in a rented house near a mosque.
He continued, “Normally
during hot summers, water levels dropped and we faced a shortage of
water. People used to collect water from the nearby mosque, paying them a
small fee. I was forced to do the same and we happily paid our
contribution until one day the cleric came to know that we are from the
Christian faith. Immediately the local cleric stopped us from taking
water from the mosque which caused us great difficulty.”
He added that moving, they
faced more discrimination. “We saw a house for rent and agreed terms
with the owner, but when I shared I was Christian with the landlord he
refused us his house as he will not let it to a Christian. The majority
of Muslims living in rural areas of the country think that Christians
are inferior and unholy people.”
For more information visit www.britishpakistanichristians.org
Photo captions: 1) Bashiran Bibi forced to live alone since her son Aftab Gill was accused of blasphemy. 2) Front door of the local mosque. 3) Aftab Gill’s uncle Riaz Masih, a local cobbler. 4) Jeremy and Elma Reynalds.
About
the writer: Jeremy Reynalds is Senior Correspondent for the ASSIST News
Service, a freelance writer and also the founder and CEO of Joy
Junction, New Mexico's largest emergency homeless shelter, www.joyjunction.org.
He has a master's degree in communication from the University of New
Mexico, and a Ph.D. in intercultural education from Biola University in
Los Angeles. His newest book is "From Destitute to Ph.D." Additional
details on "From Destitute to Ph.D." are available at www.myhomelessjourney.com. Reynalds lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with his wife, Elma. For more information contact: Jeremy Reynalds at jeremyreynalds@gmail.com.
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