Faisalabad
(AsiaNews) - The wave of anti-Christian violence has not stopped in Pakistan. Abuses
continue to be perpetrated in the name of the blasphemy law and acts of sexual
violence are carried out against underage girls from religious minorities,
treated as mere objects for personal pleasure.
As the case
of Rimsha Masih, the young girl with mental disabilities falsely
accused based on the 'black law,' continues to draw the attention of the
international community, the case involving another Christian girl came to
light yesterday. On 25 August, Allah Rakhi, 10, was sexually assaulted by a
Muslim scrap dealer. The girl, who is from a poor family in Yousafabad, Madina
Town, Faisalabad, was brutally raped and left bleeding on the ground.
Local sources
report that police filed a case against the accused rapist and arrested him,
but details about the incident surfaced only in the last few hours.
Early
reports say that the girl went to a store to sell some old items along with her
8-year-old sister Suneha. The scrap dealer, Muhammad Nazir, 60, told her that
he would buy the items but had no cash to pay her. He invited the two sisters
to follow him to his home where he would pay them. Once they arrived, he let only
the 10 year old into the house.
After a
while, Suneha entered the house where she found her sister, naked and crying. She
then ran home and told her father who came back to get his older daughter. The latter
was still lying on the floor where she had been sexually assaulted, unconscious
and in pain. In the room, a TV was still on showing a porno movie, a source
said.
A medical
examination confirmed the girl had been raped. Thanks to the cooperation of a Christian
activist, a case was filed against Muhammad Nazir. Even though he threatened to
make Christians pay if they reported the incident, he was subsequently
arrested,.
"We are
very poor and unable to fight with this kind of rich people," Sarfraz Masih, the
girl's father, told AsiaNews. "We have been threatened," but "we will
fight for justice and will not step back because of threats or blandishments.
My daughter is
in critical situation and I have sent her to an unknown place for security
reasons."
For
Fr Khalid
Rashid Asi, vicar general of the Diocese of Faisalabad, "the lack of justice in
Pakistan means that the rich and powerful think that they can commit such acts
and get away with it," which is what often happens.
Had such a
terrible crime been done against a Muslim girl, "it is likely that all the
Christian homes in the area would have been torched." The law must be the same
for everyone, the priest said, "and offenders punished."
