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Also Via Human Rights Without
Frontiers - HRWF
PAKISTAN
- RAPES OF CHRISTIAN GIRLS
FAROOQABAD, Pakistan, August 16 (CDN) —
The vulnerability of Christian girls to
sexual assault in Pakistani society emerged again last month as a Muslim
landowner allegedly targeted a 16-year-old and a gang of madrassa
(Islamic school) students allegedly abused a 12-year-old in Punjab Province.
In Farooqabad, Shiekhupura district, three Muslim co-workers of a Christian man
allegedly raped his 16-year-old daughter at gunpoint the night of July 21; the
following evening in Gujar Khan, Rawalpindi district, more than a half dozen madrassa
students decided to “teach these Christians a lesson” by allegedly gang-raping
the 12-year-old girl.
The students at Jamia Islamia Madrassa had been harassing Christians in the
villages around Gujar Khan, said the pastor of the church to which the girl’s
family belongs, United Pentecostal Church.
“They openly announce that ‘the Christians are our enemies, we should not talk
to them, eat with them or do business with them,’” Pastor Shakeel Javed told
Compass.
The students often beat Christian children who come to play on the school
grounds, telling them to convert or leave, he said, adding that on Sundays they
throw stones at the church building.
A school teacher who said she was witness to the alleged rape told Compass that
when she came across the madrassa students the evening of July 22, she
overheard one saying, “We will teach these Christians a lesson they will never
forget.”
“Three or four Christian girls were washing dishes near a pond,” Rana Aftab
said. “These guys ran towards them, and the girls started running. One of them
fell on the ground, and these madrassa students got hold of her and
took her in the fields. I tried to stop them, but they were 15-16 in number.”
Seven or eight of them raped the girl, whose name is withheld, while the others
looked on, Aftab said.
“She kept yelling for help, but no one heard her cries,” Aftab said.
They left the girl in the field, and some villages took her home to her father,
Pervaiz Masih, Aftab said.
Masih was devastated, and the girl’s mother fainted when she saw her, Masih
told Compass.
Masih and Aftab went to the police station to register a complaint, but the
officer in charge refused to register it, Aftab said.
When Compass contacted officers at the police station, they initially refused
to comment, but eventually one admitted that they are under pressure from
Muslims leaders and extremists to refrain from filing a First Information
Report (FIR) on the alleged crime.