On Friday (March 21), Pakistani Muslims slashed the throat of a Christian colleague on allegations that they committed a blasphemous ASP by touching Muslim textbooks “with dirty hands,” the victim’s father said.
The attack on 22-year-old Wakas Masi took place at the paper mill in Subang Allah in the Sharakpur region of Sheikhpur district, Punjab, his father, Riyasat Masi.
“Zohaib Iftikhar, the factory’s shift, attacked his son with a cutter blade and slashed his jugular vein,” Masih, a brother-in-Chief Church member and father of six, told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News. “My son bravely fought the assailant despite the blood gushing from his throat.”
Factory management rushed Wakas Masi to a nearby hospital for emergency care, which saved his life, prevented the suspect from fleeing the scene and handed him over to police, he said. His son was later moved to Mayo Hospital in Lahore, where he underwent surgery and recovered.
After regaining consciousness, Wakas Masi wrote a statement from her hospital bed. There, he accused Iftical of secing copies of Islamic Yat Islamic textbooks with “dirty hands” and said he attacked him.
Wakas Masi also said that Iftical had involved him in religious debates and pressured him to convert to Islam on various occasions.
“I think Iftical misused the blasphemous asp allegations to target Wakass because he had not surrendered to his request for conversion,” Masi said.
Masi, a resident of Batti Durwan Housing Colony in Sheikhpura district, said her son had signed a contract to collect waste from the factory six months ago.
Napoleon Kaiyam of Haz Pakistan, a Christian legal organisation, said his group helped his family to book Iftical in an attempted murder.
“We are standing with our family in search of justice for our son. They are seeking their justice for our son. They were mistakenly targeted for blasphemous accusations and nearly lost his life,” Kaiyam told Christian Daily International Morning Star News. “The accused must be punished according to the law, and the police must also ensure protection for the victim’s family.”
Blasphemy is an inflammatory charge for many in Pakistan, and the baseless accusations incite public rage that could lead to lynching. In May, Christian Nazeer Masih Gill passed away shortly afterwards after being accused of burning pages of the Qur’an. In August 2023, Muslim mob attacked the Christian area of Jalanwara in Faisalabad district, burning multiple churches and homes after two brothers were mistakenly accused of writing blasphemous content and secing the Quran.
Pakistan has also seen a sharp rise in prosecutions for “online blasphemy” cases over the past two years, with private vigilante groups making accusations against hundreds of young individuals, including Christians allegedly committing a blasphemy.
Expressing vigilance against the increase in false blasphemous ASP accusations in Pakistan, the United Nations Human Rights Commission (UNHRC) on November 7th urged the abolition or amendment of the country’s widely condemned blasphemous laws.
The committee noted that false blasphemous accusations lead to violence among Muslim mobs and recommend that the law be amended in accordance with the requirements of the International Contract Requirements for Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR). In his observation of the conclusions of the Commission’s second regular report on Pakistan, he said that concerns about sections 295 and 298 of the Pakistan Penal Code carry serious penalties, including the death penalty, and have a disproportionate impact on religious minorities.
“I am also concerned about the increased number of people who have been imprisoned for blasphemy, the number of cases of blasphemy based on false accusations, violence against those accused of blasphemy, cultivating vigilantes justice, allegations of locking up young people, and the Committee’s Commission on the Commission’s allegations of blasphemy accusations.
Pakistan ranked 8th on the 2025 World Watchlist, where it’s the hardest place to become a Christian.
