Pakistan: RI Partners Aid Couple Whose Newborn Son Was Killed
Jul 18 2006
Postings >> Pakistan

RI partners in Pakistan have taken on the case of a poor Christian couple whose newborn son was killed when local Muslims bulldozed their home.

Lawyers from the Centre for Legal Aid Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS) intervened when the authorities registered the baby's death as being 'due to starvation'.

Mansha Masih, a labourer from Kasur district, was engaged in a court battle with a local businessman Nazar Mohammad over who owned Masih's home. But last month Mohammad took matters into his own hands, raiding the house with a group of armed men. Finding Masih's wife Arshad and two young children at home, they beat Arshad and threw her belongings out of the window -- including a bed on which her 40-day-old baby was lying. The baby died of chest injuries. The house was then bulldozed to the ground.

Masih says the local police refused to register a case. When he took his son's body to the hospital for medical certification, Mohammad had allegedly already spoken with doctors who insisted on recording starvation as the cause of death. CLAAS reports that Mohammad has already started construction work on the site of the Masihs' home. The Masihs are now homeless.

• Cry out to God for justice for the Masih family. Ask God to comfort them.
• Pray for an end to a system in Pakistan which continues to treat Christians as second-class citizens whose human rights can be violated with impunity.