Rawalpindi, Christian girl murdered for refusing to marry a young Muslim

Sonia was 24 years old and worked as a maid. Shahzad is a photographer and had been proposing for months, even pushing his family to propose marriage. But the girl always refused. After several threats, he killed her on the street on her way to work.

Rawalpindi (AsiaNews) - Sonia, a 24-year-old Christian girl was killed by a young Muslim Shahzad because she refused to marry him. The killing took place last November 30 and the killer is still at large.

Sonia was the daughter of Allah Rakha Masih, who moved 13 years earlier with her family from Faisalabad to Rawalpindi to work as a janitor in a government school.

Sonia's mother, Teresa, says her two daughters, Sonia and Nazish, 18, work as housekeepers and are a great financial help for the family. Usually they always left together to go to work. On the morning of November 30, Sonia left her sister at the entrance of the Air Force Colony, the neighborhood where they live in a rented house, and headed to Behria Town, where she worked. As she was crossing the G.T. highway, Shahzad shot her in the head and killed her.

The family, warned of the accident, took Sonia to the hospital, where the doctors could only declare her death.

Allah Rakha tells that the family of Shahzad, a Muslim, had met their poor Christian family and asked that Sonia marry Shahzad. But they refused, saying that being Christians, their faith does not allow them to marry people of other faiths. In addition, Allah Rakha explains, Sonia was a "true Christian" and would never agree to change her religion.

Shahzad is a photographer and has a shop in town. He followed and met Sonia several times for at least 4-5 months, and proposed continuously. But she always refused. So he began to threaten her and eventually killed her.

On November 30, Allah Rakha denounced Shahzad and Faizan, a friend of his who helped him escape by motorcycle after the assassination. On December 2, the police arrested Faizan, but Shahzad has not yet been found.