Posted: 11/20/2014 at 10:00am | IP Logged

LAHORE, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- A 4 month pregnant Pakistani woman killed on Tuesday, November 04, 2014, alongside her husband for alleged blasphemy was wrapped in cotton so she would set alight faster, relatives who witnessed the horrific attack revealed.

Martyrs for their faith Shahzad Masih and Shama Bibi

According to Britain’s Daily Mail, Shama Bibi, 24, and her husband Sajjad [Shahzad] Masih, 27, also had their legs broken so they could not flee the mob that locked them inside a brick-making factory before their murder.

The couple were surrounded by a crowd of at least 1,200 and thrown on top of a brick kiln where they were burned alive, witnesses said.

“They picked them up by their arms and legs and held them over the brick furnace until their clothes caught fire,' family spokesman Javed Maseeh told NBC News. “And then they threw them inside the furnace.”

He said Bibi, a mother of four who was four months pregnant, was wearing clothing that did not initially catch fire, so the mob removed her from over the kiln and wrapped her up in cotton to make sure the material would burn faster.

The Daily Mail went on to say that the killings were sparked by the mob's belief the couple had desecrated a copy of the Koran. By the time the attack was over, only charred bones and the couple's discarded shoes remained.

“The bones are still being found,” Javed Maseeh told NBC. “Friends keep on collecting them and bringing them to us in batches of two or three. We will bury these bones when we have enough for the bodies. But we will not find all of them, I'm sure.”

Charred remains highlight the brutality of the incident

The gruesome incident took place in the tiny hamlet of Chak 59 near Kot Radha Kishan town, 37 miles southwest of Lahore.

“The killing has sparked protests by Christians and outrage among rights activists, while police have arrested 44 suspects,” said the Daily Mail.

Jawad Qamar, a local police official, has now explained that local suspicions of blasphemy unfolded more than a week earlier with the death of Shahzad's father, a local religious healer.

“When he died, Shahzad's wife went to his room and cleaned up the mess. There was a trunk in his room,” the Daily Mail continued. “Shahzad's wife took the things that could be useful and burnt the trash, throwing the residue on the rubbish heap in front of her house.

“The garbage collector [most reports state the landowner and a colleague found the alleged burnt shreds of Koran- from my knowledge these heaps are permanent and no rubbish collector visits] collected the trash the next day and told a local cleric that he had collected burnt pages of the Koran thrown in front of Shahzad's house from the trash.

“However, Shahzad's older brother said he and his whole family are bonded workers paying off their debts to the brick kiln owner - a man named Mohammed Yousuf.”

This community has been shocked by the violent that has left so little a trace of Shahzad and Shama

“We take advance money from the owner and work for him, it has been going on for years. On November 3, the owner had called Iqbal and detained him sensing that he might run away to save his life,” he said tearfully. The allegation against the factory owner was denied by his son Khawar Yousuf.”

He said: “We don't know what has happened, the family has been working for us for 20 years and we have never noticed anything bad. It's wrong to say that my father locked them up.”

Cameraman Malik Abdul Aziz, who witnessed the killing, has described first-hand the brutal attack that unfolded.

He said about 1,500 people gathered from nearby villages after being stoked up by local clerics who announced the couple had committed blasphemy over the loudspeakers of their mosques.

“They started beating the couple with sticks and bricks chanting slogans of 'We will lay down our lives for the honor of the prophet' and then tore off the couple's clothes.

“The couple were screaming, begging for mercy and saying they had not committed any blasphemy.

Image of the brick kiln where Shahzad and Shama were roasted alive

“The mob tied them to a tractor and dragged them over rocky ground for around 20 yards and laid them on top of the brick kiln oven and kept them there till they were burnt,' he added.

Many say at this point the couple became unconscious but showed signs of life, however the mob then them alive, in a brick kiln.

Pakistan's brick kiln workers are often subject to harsh practices, with a study by the Bonded Labour Liberation Front Pakistan estimating that 4.5 million are indentured labourers.

Now Wilson Chowdhry, who heads up the British Pakistani Christian Association, told the ASSIST News Service, “Police stood back and watched while [the] Pakistani Christian couple Shahzad and Shama were killed.”

He said that the young Christian couple in their mid-twenties, have three children, “A son Sulman (6 years) and two daughters Sonia (4 years) and Poonam (18 months), who are now being cared for by the family of Shahzad.”

Chowdhry went on to say, “Reports say that there had been considerable tension between the surrounding villages and Clarkabad because, despite the unemployment issues, it had been the first village in the area to have amenities such as electricity, a post-office, a bank and a high school. Jealousy because Christian individuals or businesses or communities have become more prosperous despite the disadvantages Christians face has been an occasion for huge outbreaks of violence in the past, most notoriously the sacking of Shanti-Nagar, a largely Salvation Army village in the 90’s.

“This particular family had needed work, so some time ago they moved to the nearby village of Chak 59 village near Kot Radha Kishan, Kasur district. A number of Shahzad’s brothers (he was the youngest of 6 brothers) and their families also went to the village to work in the brick kiln.

“It appears that, as is so often the case in such situations, their employer was also their landlord. He had advanced them a fee to work for him, which they then had to pay back – this is a standard method to trap people into bonded slavery. It is so easy to add exorbitant interest or otherwise fudge the figures (especially due to high levels of illiteracy) and keep the victims in perpetual servitude – something that is technically illegal but goes on unchecked and can enslave families for generations.

“Relatives reported that such cheating was going on in the case of Shahzad and he had wanted to escape, and thus there was a dispute between Shahzad and his ‘employer’.

“Shahzad’s father died on October 30, 2014. He had apparently practiced black magic involving amulets with written paper charms in them. Shama, about four months pregnant, and illiterate, was cleaning out his stuff on Sunday, November 2, when she found these amulets, and took them out and burned them along with other occult material, as she wanted nothing to do with such evil objects.

“She threw the ashes on the garbage pile outside their house and a Muslim co-worker – according to some reports an overseer or manager in the brick kiln – saw half burnt paper fragments and accused her of burning the Koran and therefore of committing blasphemy. The entire family (all 6 brothers worked in the brick kiln) approached the owner Gujjar over the issue because tension was so high in the village over the incident.

“He told them not to worry, that nothing would happen, and that he would take care of it, but he also told his accountant not to let the couple leave the village without paying back their ‘bond money’. To further add to the complicated back story, reports are emerging from local Christians that this kiln accountant had allegedly raped Shama a few days earlier, hence Shahzad wanting to leave.

“That night the couple slept in a relative’s house for safety. In the meantime some Muslim neighbours’ had told the local police of the alleged blasphemy and warned that an attack on the couple was likely. The couple returned to their house in the early morning of Tuesday, November 4th, to get ready for work, but already a small mob was starting to form.

“The couple and other relatives took refuge at another family member’s house. The Christian men and boys fled, leaving the women and girls and little children locked in their quarters for safety as they expected the males to become particular targets of the mob. A few of the mob knocked on the door at breakfast time and asked about Shama’s whereabouts. Shama was there holding the youngest child. A man dragged her out, snatched the child, and threw him to the floor, but a brick kiln guard managed to rescue Shama and took her to the nearby kiln office and locked the distraught lady inside for safety.

Only two pall bearers were required due to the little that remained of the couple

“The guard then went to Shahzad and asked him to join her to comfort her until the mob dispersed, when he promised they would be let out. However the villages of Chak 59 and the kiln co-workers had been calling on the five neighboring villagers for ‘help’. Mosques in these surrounding villages started broadcasting the alleged ‘blasphemy’ and calling all inciting the faithful violence.

“In response 100’s or even 1000’s of men poured into the village on tractors and trailers, armed with axes, clubs and other weapons. Some demanded that the kiln manager disclose the couples whereabouts – it’s not clear if he told them, but in any case the mob stormed the kiln office and broke down the outer door but could not break the metal inner door, so instead they smashed in the roof, opened the door from the inside and dragged the couple out to the waiting body of the mob who beat them with the axes and clubs, breaking all their limbs.

“The couple were stripped and tied to a tractor and dragged along a rough road under construction and full of crushed stone. The mob kept beating them. Family members who witnessed the scene weren’t sure if the couple were alive or dead at the horrifying climax – some think both were unconscious, whilst some say Shama had died but Shahzad was still alive when the mob poured petrol [gasoline] from a tractor over the bodies and threw them into the brick kiln.

“At this all the surviving relatives fled to Clarkabad and other places of refuge. They say that a police van had been present all through the attack, but even though some people begged the police to fire in the air to disperse the mob (none of whom had guns), they refused. Huge numbers of police did arrive later on and have arrested about 40 of the perpetrators, including Gujjar, the kiln owner. The police state he and his son-in-law, a co-owner of the kiln, had egged on the local prayer leader to declare the couple guilty from the mosque.”

He added, “However, there is a major irregularity in the way the police have handled the case. They have denied the family their right under law to register the official case (FIR – First Information Report) and instead have registered it themselves. They have incorrectly named the couple within the FIR, in what many believe is an attempt to confuse international media. Normally the state will only register an FIR in a murder case if there are no relatives to take up the victim’s cause. Shama’s father is protesting this.

Prayers for the couple were charged with emotion

He has long been a leader of the bonded laborers (slaves) and sees this as yet another tactic used to oppress the powerless. Relatives who witnessed the entire incident are conspicuously absent from the report. In addition, the authorities deliberately denied the victims a proper Christian burial. A Christian funeral had been agreed for the next day, but at midnight the authorities took the remains and buried them secretly. This is almost certainly because a public funeral would be an occasion for the Christian community to mass protest in a newsworthy fashion. It seems the authorities are trying to stop this story from reaching the international media in the West.

“A senior Christian journalist has suggested to a BPCA researcher that these illegal tactics concerning the FIR in a murder case are a clear sign that the authorities are planning to protect the real culprits, and thus want as total control of the investigation as possible to have as an effective cover-up as they can. However, since then, the federal government has appointed the Christian minister for Ports and Shipping, Kamran Michael, to co-ordinate the case, saying the state has taken on the complainant’s role to set a precedent and make sure there is deterrence against future similar events, although reportedly there was considerable internal resistance to this course of action within the cabinet.

“The government has also said that it is taking this course of action so that the family could not be pressured and bullied into a compromise agreement, as so often happens in such cases.”

A protest march for Shahid and Shama was held in Kasur, Pakistan, on November 9, 2014. Pastors of all denominations including Catholic and Protestant participated. The demonstrators chanted slogans and brandished placards protesting the ongoing religious persecution in Pakistan, demanding an end to the injustices and abuses related to the blasphemy laws.

"The government must take immediate bold steps to repeal blasphemy law. The government has absolutely failed to protect its citizen’s right to life and property" said Sardar Mushtaq Gill, a Pakistani human rights defender.

And now, the British Pakistani Christian Association is planning a protest and memorial service for Shahzad and Shama on November 22 at 10 Downing Street, in London. They have also set up a permanent benevolent fund to help the family free themselves from bonded labour and to provide ongoing support to the three orphaned children. They have also launched a petition about this brutal killing www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/justice4shahzadsham. Go to www.britishpakistanichristians.co.uk for more information on their work.

Note: ANS would like to thank the British Pakistani Christian Association for supplying these pictures.

Source: Assist News Service