For information about the Orthodox Mission in Pakistan, see here.
For previous ChristianPersecution.com coverage of the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, see here.
“Muslim ‘Suitor’ Kidnaps 13-Year-Old Christian Girl in Pakistan,” Morning Star News, March 21, 2024:
LAHORE, Pakistan (Christian Daily International–Morning Star News) – Two months after a Muslim told a Christian in Pakistan he could not stop him from taking the Christian’s 13-year-old daughter for marriage to his 28-year-old Muslim son, the girl was kidnapped on March 13, her father said.
Shakeel Masih said his daughter, Roshni Shakeel, had spurned the advances of Muazzam Mazhar before the young Muslim man kidnapped her from her home in Basti Khaliq Pura in Multan District, Punjab Province.
Masih said that Muazzam Mazhar’s father, Mazhar Abbas, called him from Saudi Arabia where is working two months ago and demanded Roshni’s hand in marriage for his unemployed son.
“You have a beautiful daughter, and it would be better for you to give her to my son yourself – there’s nothing you ‘Chuhras’ can do to stop us from taking her,” Abbas told Masih, the 33-year-old Christian father said. Chuhra is a pejorative term used for Christians in Muslim-majority Pakistan.
Masih said he flatly rejected Abbas’s demand, telling him that under no circumstances would he agree to marry his daughter into a Muslim family even if she were of marriageable age.
“I stopped taking Abbas’s phone calls after that, and this offended him to the extent that he encouraged his son to abduct Roshni and forcibly marry her,” Masih told Christian Daily International-Morning Star News.
Two days after Roshni’s abduction, local Muslim Bilal Hatim told Masih that he should give up hope of finding his daughter because she had converted to Islam and married Muazzam Mazhar, Masih said….
“The accused used to force my daughter to befriend him, but she turned down his offers and brought the matter to my notice,” Masih said. “I complained about his lecherous behavior several times, but instead of stopping him, his family encouraged him to continue with his evil actions.”
The impoverished Masih, who works as a cleaner at a restaurant, said Roshni had stopped going to school after grade seven because she did not like to recite quranic verses taught in the government-run institution.
“Roshni did not feel comfortable in that school because of the overtly Islamic education imparted there,” he said. “Despite my meager resources, I was determined to educate my children and told her that she should continue her studies at home. I will never believe that a girl who did not like quranic studies has suddenly grown so interested in that faith that she converted. Her conversion and marriage are just a cover for sexual abuse.”…
