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Christian couple 'burned to death by Pakistani mob

Christian couple 'burned to death by Pakistani mob

A pregnant Pakistani woman killed alongside her husband for alleged blasphemy was wrapped in cotton so she would set alight faster, relatives who witnessed the horrific attack revealed.

Shama Bibi, 24, and her husband Sajjad Maseeh, 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 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 the material would burn faster.

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.'

The gruesome incident took place yesterday in the tiny hamlet of Chak 59 near Kot Radha Kishan town, 60 kilometres southwest of Lahore.

The killing has sparked protests by Christians and outrage among rights activists, while police have arrested 44 suspects.

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

'When he died, Shehzad's wife went to his room and cleaned up the mess. There was a trunk in his room. Shehzad's wife took the things that could be useful and threw the trash in front of her house.

'The garbage collector collected the trash the next day and told a local cleric that he had collected pages of the Koran thrown in front of Shehzad's house from the trash.'

However, Shehzad'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.

'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.'

Camera man 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 honour of the prophet' and then tore off their clothes.
'The couple were screaming, begging for mercy and saying they have not committed any sin.

'The mob dragged them for around 20 yards and laid them on top of the brick kiln oven and kept them there till they were burnt,' he added.

It was not clear whether they were already dead or burnt alive.

Blasphemy is a hugely sensitive issue in the majority Muslim country, with even unproven allegations often prompting mob violence.

Those who take part in the violence are rarely if ever prosecuted - a fact not lost upon the relatives of the deceased.

'I need justice but I am sure I won't be able to get it, the clerics are too powerful,' Shehzad's brother Iqbal said.
Tahir Ashrafi, a member of the Council of Islamic Ideology, Pakistan's top religious body, held police responsible for failing to act to protect the couple before the mob violence occurred.

'This case must go to a anti-terrorism court and the culprits must be arrested and punished, including the mullah (who made the blasphemy accusation in mosque) if he's involved,' he said.

Police chief Qamar stated that no particular sectarian group or religious outfit was behind the attack.

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.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif constituted a three-member committee to fast track the investigation of the killings and ordered police to beef up security at Christian neighbourhoods in the province.

Blasphemy charges, even when they go to court, are punishable by death in Muslim-majority Pakistan.

They are hard to fight because the law does not define clearly what is blasphemous. Presenting the evidence can sometimes itself be considered a fresh infringement.

Christians make up about four per cent of Pakistan's population and tend to keep a low profile in a country where Sunni Muslim militants frequently bomb targets they see as heretical, including Christians, and Sufi and Shi'ite Muslims.

All of Pakistan's minorities feel that the state fails to protect them, and even tolerates violence against them.
Last month a British man with a history of mental health illness, sentenced to death for blasphemy earlier this year, was shot by a prison guard in his cell.

Also in October, a Pakistani court upheld the death penalty against a Christian woman, Asia Bibi, who is also accused of blasphemy, in a case that drew global headlines after two prominent politicians who tried to help her were assassinated.

Πηγή: dailymail.co.uk