Pakistani Muslims Employ ‘Blasphemy’ Threat in Land Grab

Attempt fails as influential Islamic family intervenes on behalf of Christians.

SIALKOT, Pakistan, February 27 (CDN) — Tensions are still high in a village near here following Muslims’ attempt to seize land from a Christian family by threatening to accuse them of “blasphemy.”


What began on Feb. 19 as a quarrel over a pigeon between Christian and Muslim youths at Nawa Pind Sabu Mohal village, in Sialkot’s Pasroor area in northeast Punjab Province, grew into an occasion to jail some Christians in the overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim country, the Christians said.


Gulshan Masih, 20, told Compass that his younger brother, Saif Masih, 18, had quarreled with a young Muslim over a pigeon that led to about a half dozen boys from each group charging into a fistfight and later pelting each other with stones. With the Muslims throwing bricks and stones from inside a mosque at the young Christian men’s homes, the skirmish ended when an elderly female relative of the Christians was wounded in their courtyard, Gulshan Masih said.


A few hours later, police officers arrived and took his father, 55-year-old Bashir Masih, 55, and 50-year-old uncle, Pervaiz Masih, into custody.


“The Muslims had accused us of desecrating the mosque by throwing stones at it,” Gulshan Masih said. “My father and uncle were not even involved in the fight, yet they were taken into custody on false charges.”


Muslim villagers have tried to drive Christians from the village on similarly petty pretexts, he said.


“We own land and cattle, and this may be one of the reasons why the Muslims keep on picking fights with us over minor issues,” Masih said, recalling how relatives Saleem and Rasheed Masih were arrested on a false blasphemy charge in 1999 after a quarrel stemming from a Muslim ice cream vendor refusing to serve Saleem Masih from the same bowl used by Muslims. Rasheed Masih was not even present at the scene of the quarrel, Gulshan Masih said, but was also charged.


Their accusers had carried a grudge again them after having lost a civil land dispute. The brothers were convicted of blasphemy by a lower court, but the Lahore High Court freed them on March 19, 2003.


Hidden MotiveAs soon as word spread in Sialkot that the Christian youths had “desecrated the mosque,” Muslims from nearby villages gathered at a police station to pressure officers into registering a false case against Bashir and Pervaiz Masih under Pakistan’s internationally condemned laws against blaspheming Islam, its prophet or the Quran.


Two days later, Tuesday (Feb. 21), police took into custody eight more Christians – Gulhan Masih, his cousin Amir Masih, Mehmood Masih, Irshad Masih, Kashif Masih, Qamar Masih, Khuram Masih and Akmal Masih – in order to increase pressure on the Christians, according to Napoleon Qayyum, a Christian rights activist. He said it was evident that the Muslims were trying to seize a 1.5-kanal (one kanal is one-eighth of an acre) plot of land owned by Bashir Masih, as they demanded that he surrender it as a condition for the release of the jailed Christians.


Bashir’s land is located near a mosque run by one Hafiz Ishfaq, who is also a member of the militant Islamist group, the Sunni Tehreek, Qayyum said.


Police released Bashir and Pervaiz Masih and the other eight Christians on Wednesday evening (Feb. 22) with a warning that they would be charged with blasphemy if they did not meet the conditions set the previous day by a “reconciliation committee” comprising the area’s notable Muslim leaders, Qayyum said – though in fact an influential family had argued successfully against imposing the condition on the Christians.


Muhammad Riaz Dar, the police inspector in-charge of the area, told Compass that the matter had been “amicably resolved” by the two parties. He declined to comment on the illegal detention.


Qayyum said the chain of events was clear.


“Look at how conveniently they threatened the Christians with involving them in a fake blasphemy case and were about to acquire the land without even paying a penny,” he said.


The intervention of the influential Muslim family on behalf of the Christians persuaded Hafiz Ishaq and others against trying to seize their land, Gulshan Masih said. Thus far the Muslims have backed off from that demand, but the village was still volatile, he said.


The other demand imposed by the “reconciliation committee” was that Pervaiz Masih’s son, Amir, not enter the village.


The Muslims suspect that Amir Masih had an affair with a local Muslim girl and took this opportunity to ban him from the village, said Qayyum.


He criticized police for playing into the hands of the Muslims.


“The police kept Bashir and Pervaiz in illegal custody for three days while eight others were detained for a day without any justification,” he said. “The police did not bother to take action against the Muslims involved in the fight. No Muslim was arrested, and no notice was taken of the injuries suffered by the Christians.”



END

Muslims in Pakistan Beat, Shoot at Christians in Land Grab

Police help cohorts of retired military official in seizure of Christian’s property; two women assaulted.

By Murad Khan

 

LAHORE, Pakistan, December 1 (Compass Direct News) – In an attempted land-grab in southern Punjab Province, police and cohorts of a retired military official beat two Christian women and shot at Christians who came to help them on Friday (Nov. 25), area Christians told Compass.

 

About eight police officials led by Sub-Inspector Muhammad Arif of Kot Sarwar Shaheed police station, along with armed associates of a retired senior military officer, Air Marshal Maqbool Shah, arrived at the fields of Nazeer Masih in the Kot Addu area and ordered the six or seven women working there to leave, said area Christian rights advocate Waseem Shakir. The women included Nazeer’s wife, Martha Bibi, and daughter-in-law, Nasreen Bibi.

 

The men told the workers that they had come to take possession of the 12.5 acres that Nazeer Masih owns in Mauza Sadiqabad area of Muzaffargarh district, which they claimed had now been allotted by the Revenue Department to the Pakistan Army for distribution among retired officials.

 

Martha Bibi told Compass the women were still in shock.

 

“We were cultivating chickpeas when the Muslims arrived at our fields,” she said. “They asked us to leave everything and never return because it was their land now. [We said] we have been cultivating the land since 1976, how could we just leave? This angered them, and they attacked us. They pulled away our headscarves from our heads and started hitting us indiscriminately with clubs and punches.”

 

About 800 Christians have lived in the Mauza Sadiqabad and Mauza Azizabad areas of Muzaffargarh district for the last 50 years, rights advocate Shakir told Compass by phone.

 

“The Christians are settled on 10,000 acres of land which they made cultivable over the years,” he said. “The land is actually owned by the government, but the Christians have been given ownership of the properties, and the record to this effect is present with the local revenue department.”

 

In the last few years Muslims have made several attempts to seize the land from the Christians, usually succeeding because Christians are a marginalized minority, while Muslims carry out illegal activities with impunity and official blessing, Shakir said. A similar attempt to take possession of Nazeer Masih’s land was made last year, resulting in a pending case in the Lahore High Court.

 

This time, Shakir said, the “land mafia” attempting to take the property was led by a senior military official.

 

“Martha, around 40, and Nasreen, about 28, refused to leave the land, which infuriated the Muslims, and they attacked the women, hitting them with batons and punches,” Shakir said. “The Muslims also inflicted a very serious wound near Nasreen’s left eye.”

 

He said that on seeing the commotion, some Christians working in nearby fields ran to rescue the two women, but the land-grabbers began shooting at them. No one was injured, and the assailants left with a warning that they would return, Shakir said.

 

He added that Nazeer’s family has been cultivating the land since 1976 and possessed legal documentation recorded with the revenue department.

 

“It is quite clear that Shah has used his influence and money to illegally get Nazeer’s property transferred in his name,” Shakir said. “How is it otherwise possible that any person can just come and lay claim on the land, which is already in the possession of someone for the last many years? Everyone is involved in this mafia, which is specifically targeting Christians.”

 

Area Christians had worked hard to make the land cultivable, as it used to be barren before the government settled them there, he said.

 

“Can the Punjab government justify this methodical injustice against the Christians of this area?” Shakir said. “The Muslims are grabbing any piece of land they can get their hands on. They haven’t even spared our graveyards.”

 

Muslim land-grabbers had demolished 150 Christian graves and desecrated holy relics to build shops in the Kot Addu area in November 2010, their efforts fully supported by local government officials (see www.compassdirect.org, “Pakistani Officials Back Muslim Land-Grabbers, Christians Say,” March 9).

 

Shakir said that five days after the incident and repeated appeals to the Punjab government, officials had taken no action against police for the violence done to the Christian women, much less investigating the attempted land seizure.

 

“The government doesn’t care at all,” he said. “Deeply frustrated at the treatment being given to us, we blocked the road for some time in protest. It was then that the area’s deputy superintendent of police, Asadullah Khan, assured us that he would request the district police officer to probe the matter himself, because the people involved in this matter were beyond his authority. The assurance is turning out to be eyewash yet again, as there has been no progress in this regard.”

 

Khan declined to comment on the case. He referred Compass to the district police officer, who was unavailable for comment.

 

Gulzar Masih, headman of the area, told Compass that Muslims had also set fire to the house of a Christian man named Jalal Masih a year ago in an attempt to grab his property.

 

“We knocked on every possible door, but the local government remained indifferent to the situation,” he said. “Even though we somehow managed to get the chief minister to mark our application for registration of a case against the arsonists, the police refused to listen to us and threatened us with dire consequences if we did not stop pursuing the matter. The Muslims eventually grabbed Jalal Masih’s property.”

 

Gulzar Masih said that the entire revenue department was involved in tampering with property documents of Christians to render them landless.

 

“It is economic persecution of Christians of the area,” he said. “The government must intervene before it’s too late.”

 

www.compassdirect.org

 

END

 

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Copyright 2011 Compass Direct News