Pakistani Muslims, including former police officers, tortured Christian workers on Monday (May 12) in accusations of theft, the victim’s brother said.
Riyasat Masi of Mohara Jamalpur in Jamakei Cheema village in Siarkot district of Punjab, said that his 35-year-old Catholic brother Kashif Masi has worked on the agricultural property of former police inspector Malik Irfan over the past three years.
On Monday (May 12th), two relatives of Irfan (Alebbabar and Ikhazikramla) surged into the home where the Masi brothers lived, Riyasat Masi said.
“They claimed that my brother Kashif stole a cell phone from their departure,” Masi told Christian Daily International Morning Star News. “They searched our house thoroughly and left after they found nothing there. They then did not tell us that Kasif had been in custody since the evening of Sunday May 11th.”
At 5am the next day, he said, the neighbor told Masi that someone had threw Kashif Masi into Area Street and that he had been brutally tortured.
“We were already very concerned because we couldn’t contact him,” Masi said. “As soon as we got the information we rushed to the spot and found him lying there, blood gushing out of some parts of his body and it hurt so badly.
Before succumbing to his injuries, Kashif Masi told his brothers and others that Malik Irfan had summoned him to his outhouse on the evening of May 11th and accused him of stealing his cell phone, Masi said.
“According to Kasif, Irfan ordered him to beat him until he confessed,” he said. “Kasif said Acebu, Ijaz and others began to torture him with wooden clubs and iron bars, and attacked him indiscriminately throughout his body.”
Masi said he discovered that when he took his brother’s body to the hospital for an autopsy, the assailant had hit several steel claws on his leg.
“When I see my brother’s body, I can’t express the pain,” Masi said. “The brutality he suffered at the hands of an influential employer and his foolish.”
Police were initially reluctant to register murders against former police officers, but after a large number of Christians gathered there, the officers eventually registered their first information report (FIR) and arrested Irfan, Masi said.
Babar and Ikramara were released on bail before their arrest on Tuesday (May 13), but police have yet to find any other suspects, he said.
“We were seven brothers and two sisters, and Kasif was the fifth of us,” he said. “Our father passed away a few years ago. We all work as workers to support our families. We cannot tell you the condition of our elderly mother, who has been devastated by Kashif’s horrific murder.”
Vegetable vendor Masi said he found it difficult to believe that the attacker tortured his siblings on a mere mobile phone.
“If they suspected that Kasif had stolen the phone, they could have simply handed him to the police or brought issues with our notification,” he said. “The way they mercilessly knocked him down black and blue and slam him on the claws on his body, I doubt the reason is something else.”
His brother had not made any concerns about his employer, he added.
Local Christians provided full support to their families to get justice for their murdered brothers, Masi said.
“We are very grateful to the community who stood with us during these difficult times,” he said. “They not only raised funds to support us, they are also actively working to find good legal representatives that will help them get justice for Kashif.”
Pakistani Christians often suffer from violence and persecution committed by Muslims. They also face barriers to accessing justice, further exacerbating the light form in this vast majority of Muslim countries.
On February 27, Muslim landowners accused of Christian workers, shaving their heads, shaving their hair, blacking their faces, and parading behind their donkeys on suspicion of stealing wood from their property. At least seven Muslims attacked Wasif George, 34, of Chak 110-GB Chakjumura, a village in Faisalabad district of Punjab.
“My brother was gathering wood along the canal when the assailants came there and condemned the theft,” George told Star News for Christian Daily International Morning, adding that the assailants not only dragged his brother to a poultry farm, but also tortured him, but also got his head and face hair shaved by his lawyers.
The assailant turned his face dark, made him sit on a donkey and paraded him in the village, he said.
On June 6, 2024, the Muslim factory owner tortured 18-year-old Catholic worker Wakas Saramato and left his job against his wishes. According to the victim’s mother, five men, including their employer and son, forced their son to the factory and tortured him for hours with electric shocks, resulting in his death.
Pakistan ranked 8th on the 2025 World Watchlist, where it’s the hardest place to become a Christian.
