Pakistani Policeman Kills Christian Prisoner

Samuel Masih attacked on his hospital bed.

by Barbara G. Baker

ISTANBUL, June 1 (Compass) -- A Pakistani police constable bludgeoned to death a Christian jailed on blasphemy charges, declaring he “wanted to earn a place in paradise” by killing the alleged “blasphemer.”

Samuel Masih died last Friday from severe head injuries inflicted several days earlier by Faryad Ali, a Muslim policeman in his late 20s.

In the early morning hours of May 24, the constable entered a Lahore hospital ward where the guarded Christian prisoner was being treated for advanced tuberculosis. Swinging a brick-cutter hammer, Ali hit Masih on the head, despite a policeman posted on duty near Masih’s hospital bed.

“Faryad was roused to attack Samuel at the call of his conscience,” a police officer was quoted as telling a fact-finding team from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) several days later, as reported in the May 26 issue of Daily Times. According to the newspaper, Ali told police, “I wanted to earn a place in heaven by killing him.”

Ali knew that Masih was on trial for alleged blasphemy against Islam, because he had been part of the police escort taking Masih to a previous court hearing. Since then, he had “expressed his hatred for Samuel” to his colleagues, the police told the HRCP team.

Ali also knew Masih had been admitted to the Gulab Devi Hospital on May 22 after suffering a tuberculosis attack at Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail, where he had been imprisoned since August.

Bleeding profusely from the hammer wounds, Masih went into a coma and was transferred to the emergency neurosurgery ward of the Lahore General Hospital, where he died May 28. He was believed to be about 30 years of age.

When the injured prisoner’s family and local human rights investigators learned about the attack against Masih, police at first refused to allow them into the hospital and banned any reports on his condition from the medical staff. After initially denying knowledge of the case, one police officer claimed that Masih had injured his head by falling during an epileptic fit.

Masih’s assailant was arrested and booked for attempted murder, converted to formal murder charges after the Christian died.

Lahore police initially ordered Emmanuel Masih to take his son’s body home on Friday and bury it before dawn the next day. But at the father’s insistence, they later allowed him to take the remains to the Sacred Heart Catholic Cathedral, where the funeral was held on Saturday morning, May 29. Masih’s father is a widower with three other children.

Jailed nine months ago on accusations that he had desecrated the walls of a local mosque, Masih had worked as a whitewasher and painter before his arrest last August.

Muhammad Yaqoob, librarian of the Idara Darusalam Jinnah Garden Mosque in Lahore, filed blasphemy charges against Masih on August 23 last year. Claiming he had seen Masih spitting on the wall of the mosque near the library that day, Yaqoob produced two other witnesses to confirm his story.

But according to Masih’s father, his son had in fact simply gone into the mosque to use the toilet, and bystanders who saw the Christian leaving the mosque grabbed him and accused him of committing blasphemy. Emmanuel Masih said that his son worked at jobs away from home, so he did not even learn of his arrest until five months later.

Although human rights groups who initially inquired about Masih’s arrest were told he had been released, in fact he was sent to Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat Jail for trial. “His family did not pursue the case because they were reportedly scared of the police,” a May 29 article in the Daily Times stated.

Under the maximum penalty for violating Section 295 of the Pakistan penal code, Masih could have been jailed for two years and fined if convicted of “defiling a place of worship with the intent of insulting the religion.”

“This is a case that brings out, like nothing else, the myriad contradictions these [blasphemy] laws have infused in this state and society,” commented a Daily Times editorial the day after Masih’s death.

“The fact is that it is a bad law both in its conception and its implementation,” the editorial continued, noting that “the legislation has created a psyche that encourages vigilante behavior.”

“The blasphemy law in its present form has become more of an instrument of persecution and vendetta than of justice,” a Dawn newspaper editorial agreed the same day. “It is time Parliament thoroughly reviewed it with the aim of at least plugging the loopholes that make it so open to abuse by misguided elements.”

On May 15, President Pervez Musharraf called for constitutional amendments in the blasphemy law and Hudood Ordinances to correct their “misuse,” endemic ever since they were instituted nearly 25 years ago under the military dictatorship of General Zia ul-Haq.

Pakistan’s religious minorities and human rights advocates have long called for both laws to be abolished, stating that they are “un-Islamic,” man-made laws with punishments which contradict the precepts of Islam.  

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Copyright 2004 Compass Direct

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