TOBA TEK SINGH, Pakistan — Nearly 21 months after the murder of a Christian student in Pakistan’s Punjab region, police have arrested a Muslim cleric suspected of torturing the young man so that he would convert to Islam. Umar Hayat was arrested the week of Jan. 9 under charges that he and two other Islamic seminary members in the town of Toba Tek Singh had tortured Javed Anjum for five days.
Another suspect, Maulvi Ghulam Rasool, was rearrested in November after Pakistan’s Supreme Court revoked his bail. Judge Javed Iqbal Warraich ordered police protection for Anjum’s father, Pervez Masih, and his lawyer after Masih filed a formal complaint that armed members of Rasool and Hayat’s madrassa, or Islamic school, were harassing him at court hearings.
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