Pastor Shot after Receiving Islamist Threats in Pakistan

 Posted at Morning Star News:

Published September 4, 2023

Assailants ordered him to recite Islamic profession of faith.

LAHORE, Pakistan (Morning Star News) – A pastor was shot and wounded by hardline Muslims on Sunday evening (Sept. 3) in Jaranwala, Pakistan a week after Islamist slogans were written on the walls of his church building, sources said.

The Rev. Eleazar Sidhu, pastor of a Presbyterian church in Kukranwala village in the Khanuwana area of Jaranwala tehsil, Faisalabad District, said the assailants ordered him to recite the Islamic creed before shooting him. He was returning home to Rehmat Town with an assistant after pastoral visits to church members when two bearded men stopped his motorcycle near the Khanuwana bus stop, he said.

“One of the attackers pulled out a pistol and asked me to recite the Islamic Kalima, [profession of faith],” Pastor Sidhu stated in the First Information Report (FIR) filed at the Saddar Police Station in Jaranwala. “When I refused and instead started to recite the Apostles’ Creed, the man opened fire, resulting in a bullet wound on the upper half of my chest [on shoulder]. The assailants fled after the attack.”

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