Pakistan: Christian spouses burned alive
A Christian couple in their twenties, accused of blasphemy, were burned alive in a brick oven on November 4, 2014, by a violent crowd of Muslims in a village south of Lahore, in the east of Pakistan. The two young spouses, Shazad and Shama (on the picture), who worked in a brick factory, were locked up and held hostage for two days. On the morning of the 4th, they were pushed into an oven where bricks were baking.
The Vatican information agency Fides announced on the same day that the two victims, parents of three young children, were accused of blasphemy in connection with the recent death of the husband’s father. While cleaning her father-in-law’s home on November 2, the wife had burned a number of the deceased’s papers she thought were useless. The rumor that some pages of the Koran were among the incinerated documents spread to the surrounding villages, rallying a crowd of over 100 angry Muslims against the young family.
When questioned by Fides, the Pakistani Christian lawyer Sardar Mushtag Gill, who arrived on the scene after the crime, declared that it was a “true tragedy, a barbaric and inhuman act (…) that shows just how much the Christians’ insecurity in Pakistan has increased.”
On November 10, 2014, hundreds of Christians protested on the site of the drama, demanding that the aggressors be handed over to justice and that the anti-blasphemy law be abrogated. Sardar Mushtag Gill pointed out to Fides that “the Christians will never be safe so long as this law remains.” The Vatican agency added that the Christian protestors also protested against slavery. “Often the faithful who work at the brick factory are treated as slaves,” since they borrow from their employer in order to pay for a lodging and thus work without a salary for many years. Fides explained that “sometimes these debts, inflated by exorbitant interest rates, are inherited by the descendants of those who contracted them.” According to some sources, the employer of the Christian couple was the one who spread the rumor of blasphemy against Shazad and Shama to keep them from leaving, for he feared that they would try to escape from paying their hereditary debts. The martyrdom of these two Catholics rises up against these sordid considerations, testifying before their executioners: “He who would save his life shall lose it, but he who would lose his life for Myself and My Gospel shall save it.” (Mark 8:35)
(sources: apic/fides – DICI no.305 dated Nov. 21, 2014)
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