MIAN CHANNU, Pakistan — Six Muslims in Pakistan’s Khanewal district, southern Punjab province, killed a Christian with multiple ax blows for refusing to convert to Islam, according to family and police sources.
The six men had threatened to kill 36-year-old Rasheed Masih unless he converted to Islam when they grew resentful that his potato business succeeded beyond their own, according to Masih’s younger brother Munir Asi and a local clergyman. The rival merchants allegedly killed him after luring him to their farmhouse March 9, leaving him on a roadside near Kothi Nand Singh village in early the next day.
Pastor Iqbal Masih of the Mian Channu Parish of the Church of Pakistan said Masih was a devoted Christian, and that both he and his brother Asi had refused the Muslims’ pressure to convert to Islam. Mian Channu police have registered a case against the six men and an investigation is underway but the suspects are still at large.
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