Recent incidents of deadly torture and of abductions that result in forced marriage indicate the daily risk of persecution that some religious minorities face in Pakistan.
Christian Daily International-Morning Star News recently reported the following cases in Pakistan:
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— Kashif Masih, a 35-year-old Catholic, was tortured and beaten to death May 11–12 in Jamkay Cheema village in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Masih’s brother said Muslim assailants and a former police officer beat Masih, accusing him of stealing a mobile phone. The brother said an autopsy revealed nails had been hammered into Masih’s legs.
— A 15-year-old Catholic girl was reunited with her parents May 21, five months after a 29-year-old Muslim man and four accomplices kidnapped her in Sambrial Tehsil in Punjab province. Her family’s attorney said she was subsequently forced to convert to Islam and marry her abductor. At the time of her rescue, she was four months pregnant from repeated rapes. Three assailants are in prison; two remain at large.
— On May 16, a judge gave custody of a kidnapped 16-year-old Catholic girl to her 32-year-old Muslim captor. The girl’s father said she was abducted April 30, forced to convert to Islam and marry the kidnapper. The girl told the judge May 16 she had willfully converted and married. However, she told her parents she made those statements out of fear, her father said. “She repeatedly said that she was fearful for our lives.”
World Watch
Pakistan is No. 8 on Open Doors’ 2025 World Watch List of 50 places most difficult to be a Christian.
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