Christian youth being targeted by drug cartels in Pakistan; Christian man murdered for telling men to leave kids alone
A 55-year-old Christian man in Pakistan was brutally murdered by two assailants, but his Muslim companion, although injured, was alive.
According to the British Pakistani Christian Association, Nazeer Masih was cut several times in the face and his throat sliced open by two men, identified as Nadir and Haider from another village. Armed with an iron rod and a chopping knife, the suspects reportedly attacked Masih and his Muslim companion, Nawaz, as they were in the fields cutting grass. Nawaz suffered a wound on the head but was able to escape and report the incident to the villagers. Masih, however, was already dead by the time the villagers reached him.
Masih apparently had a previous argument with the two men when he told them to leave the Christian youth in his village alone. According to a pastor named Alfred Azam, drug dealers have been creating trouble within their Christian community.
"Before and after our church services Muslim drug dealers swarm around our church trying to sell drugs to our vulnerable youth," Azam said. "Some drug pushers move around in Christian residential areas and beat young Christians forcing them to take drugs in an attempt to get them addicted. When our older men tell these criminals to leave our young people alone they get killed."
On this issue, BPCA chairman Wilson Chowdhry said that there is growing concern over drug addition within Christian communities. The government, he said, should set up a task force to crack down on the drug cartels.
"The coercing of vulnerable Christians and other minority youth into drug addiction, often by force, has developed wealthy Muslim drug lords who continue to target such vulnerable communities," he said. "Their success and accumulated wealth has given them great power, often with authority over police forces who turn a blind eye to their crimes on the offer of rishwat (bribes)."
The people of Wandala Dayal Shah village, located in Sheikhupura district, reported the murder of Masih to authorities, but the police did not do anything and refused to file a First Incident Report for the case. The following day, on April 7, a group of Christians brought Masih's body and conducted a protest in G T Road, agreeing to bury the man provided an FIR is filed and an investigation conducted.
The complaint, according to the BPCA, has been registered and a search for the suspects is ongoing.
