Another Teenage Christian in Pakistan Beaten, Accused of Blasphemy

Asif Masih. (The Voice Society)

Posted at Morning Star News:

LAHORE, Pakistan (Morning Star News) – A Muslim mob in rural Punjab Province, Pakistan stormed a police station to continue beating a 16-year-old Christian boy accused of blaspheming the Koran, sources said.

Asif Masih, illiterate and mildly mentally challenged according to his father, was so badly beaten by the mob in Punjab Province’s Gujranwala District on Aug. 12 that he “confessed” in order to try to stop the violence, the sources said.

Police charged Asif even though they determined no motive or means for allegedly setting fire to a copy of the Koran and an Islamic booklet at a Muslim shrine in Jhamkey village, in Ali Pur Chattha of the Wazirabad area. A rival garbage-scavenger who watches over the shrine to Sufi figure Pir Sandhay Shah said someone burned pages of the Islamic scripture on July 18 or 19, and when Asif Masih happened by on Aug. 12, he seized Asif and shouted that he had done it, said Asif’s father, Stephan Masih.

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